ICASA Council Vacancies: Provisional Shortlist

Meeting report

The Chair said that the there was a need for the Committee to shortlist the candidates for appointment as Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) councillors. There were three vacancies on the ICASA board because ideally there were two members that were due to complete their term of office in June. The Committee had recommended a successor but she had since taken up employment elsewhere. The minister of Communication had urged the Committee to appoint three candidates for the Parliament to consider.

Mr K Khumalo (ANC) said that too many lawyers or persons with legal experience were currently employed at ICASA, when it should have more engineers. He argued that there was thus a lack of technically-skilled personnel at ICASA, and proposed that the names of the candidates that were to be nominated from the provisional list were to be determined by the skills that those candidates should could bring to ICASA. He proposed that the number of candidates to be nominated by the Committee be extended from five to seven, which would mean that the Committee would have to nominate three candidates which would then be forwarded to Parliament. This increase was needed so that more individuals with the necessary technical skills could be appointed to the ICASA board.

Ms M Smuts (DA) stated that there an agreement was reached between the ANC, DA and IFP that the following three names would be forwarded by the Committee to Parliament: Mr F Sibanda, Mr T Makhakhe, Mr N Batyi. The DA and the IFP nominated Mr L Somo and Mr N Rau.

The Chair noted that the three parties agreed to the nomination of the following candidates: Mr T Dlamini, Mr. F Sibanda, Mr. T Makhakhe and Mr N.Batyi. In addition to the nominated list the following individuals were to be included: Professor Dumisa, Mr L Somo and Mr N Rau. In total this amounted to seven candidates out of which Parliament would choose three.

The Committee agreed to interview the candidates on 3 June 2008, as it was a matter of urgency.

The meeting was adjourned.