Thank you, Chairperson. The DA will not support the nomination of Dr Marcia Socikwa. She is a competent person, but there is a conflict of interest, when she is related by marriage and by blood to persons who respectively run and give legal advice on the telecommunications activities of Transtel.
Transnet has a 15% share in Newtel, and Newtel and Transnet are in discussions for Newtel to acquire Transtel.
Currently, Transtel also provides services to Newtel, and in addition, Transtel holds PTN, Private Telecommunications Network, and value-added network services by other network licenses, and uses them to participate in the telecommunications sector.
Firstly, although Dr Socikwa is not directly disqualified by the letter of the Icasa Act, her relationship to Transtel is, in our view, too close for comfort. You can imagine a range of licensing amendments and other procedures where she should have to recuse herself just as Icasa embarks on the enormous task of implementing the Electronic Communications Act.
Secondly, it remains our view that the portfolio committee should have taken legal advice on whether it could start a new process to find an economist, and not on whether the filling of a vacancy left by the infrastructure economist Andrew Barendse could be performed from the list agreed upon at the last nomination process.