STAATSKOERANT, 24 JANUARIE 2014 No. 37261 The lack of development of an all-encompassing national strategy to guide the deployment and adoption of modern communications technologies in the country has been blamed for the poor performance in all tracked indicators. As indicated earlier, the Draft Broadband Policy identified the stimulation of demand for broadband services as important for the successful roll-out of broadband services. The Draft envisages government playing the role of service aggregator to acquire and procure services, network capacity, content and applications for the public sector. The demand-side measures will also see government connecting all government offices and providing a portal for interacting with the public. The second sphere of government responsibility is the use of modern communications tools to deliver services in the most efficient manner possible. There are skills and resources shortages that make the delivery of services using communications means not only cost effective but the most efficient, taking into consideration the developmental stage of the South African public service. Experience from other countries that have succeeded demonstrates that only a well-coordinated and planned introduction of e-government strategies can overcome initial obstacles and lead to successful implementation. Initiating pilots, evaluating the results and rolling out of large-scale projects requires project management skills such as were deployed during the preparations for the 2010 World Cup. A clear institutional arrangement must be developed within government to enable information sharing on planned projects, the establishment of teams that can jointly plan to develop common networks, platforms and applications, and joint funding of these activities. 12.3 The Roles of the Regulatory Agencies 12.3.1 The Role of the Independent Communications Authority ICASA was established as an independent communications authority regulating the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors by the ICASA Act 2000 in line with section 192 of the Constitution. Section 192 provides for the establishment of an independent regulatory authority to regulate broadcasting in the public interest and to ensure fairness and diversity of views broadly representative of the South African society. The Postal regulator was merged with ICASA in 2006 to provide for the regulation of the postal sector. ICASA derives its mandate and operations from the ICASA Act of 2000, the Electronic Communications Act of 2005, the Broadcasting Act of 1999 and the Postal Act of 2006. As a public entity, ICASA is subject to the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA). Research indicates that the cost to communicate in South Africa remains high even though the regulation of the sector to provide reasonable prices for services is one of the key objectives of policy and statutes. The competition framework outlined in section 10 of the Electronic Communications Act was introduced to give power to the regulator to intervene in situations where significant market power was evident, resulting in high prices and dominance abuse. The determination of markets and the outline of pro-competitive measures in situations where there is no effective competition are provisions contained in law but they have not been implemented in the past seven years. ICASA has taken action to lower the termination rate mobile operators pay to each other for the termination of calls and identified the need for intervention in the digital broadcasting signal wholesale distribution market to ensure fair pricing. Under current legislation the Minister is also empowered to issue, from time to time, policy directives to the Independent Communications Authority regarding any matter the Minister feels ICASA must consider and act upon in the implementation of the law. These directives are an important instrument enabling government and ICASA to respond to technical and 89 This gazette is also available free online at www.gpwonline.co.za 93