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Mashile out of order
again
ADSL
South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 30 December
2006
Paris Mashile,
Chairman of Icasa (Independent Communications Authority
of SA), has once again proven beyond reasonable doubt that he’s
not the man for the
job.
Mashile made it clear earlier this
month that he’s upset about the constant criticism he
receives in regard to mismanagement and inefficiency. He
even played the ‘race card’ in his defence just adding
more reasons to the ever-growing list of why he should do
the decent thing to resign.
Let’s have a look
at the points he made recently and whether it has any
validity leaving the ‘race card’ out of it
altogether:
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‘Mashile says his critics do not
seem to understand that his role is to preside over
the eight-member Icasa council, which collectively
draws up regulations, and that it is not he alone
who puts together the
rules’ (Fast change, slow law,
Claasen, December 2006) – ADSL South Africa is
convinced that no critic of Mashile or any sane
person for that matter thinks it’s Mashile ‘alone
who puts together the rules.’ He’s clearly showing
his total lack of understanding trying to twist the
issue at hand. A leader and in his case, a
chairman, is suppose to lead and take
responsibility for the actions of the organization
(if one may call it that) he presides over. In
other words, the leader is the one who’s suppose to
take the fall when things turn bad because of bad
decisions made by persons or members under his
control. If this is not true why should Icasa (or
any organization for that matter) need a chairman
in the first place? The problem is that it’s too
easy to duck away into the crowd when
responsibility pitches up, isn’t it Mr.
Mashile?
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‘…it is unfair to accuse Icasa of
being slow to act on pricing and competition,
because it has to go through a lengthy public
participation process and do extensive research
before it can introduce regulations on a particular
issue. It must also follow due legal
process’ (Fast change, slow law,
Claasen, December 2006) – Of course we understand
that some changes take time because of legalities,
et cetera but we also know it will take even longer
if the persons responsible for such changes are not
driven to succeed. For instance, in the case of
ADSL pricing being too high, Mr. Mashile made it
clear earlier this year that there’s no proof of
ADSL prices being too high while the contrary has
been proven beyond a reasonable doubt (Icasa boss
needs to step down, ADSL South Africa, 1 October
2006). A person with that mindset is clearly not
the right person to steer the ship at Icasa. He
doesn’t even get the bare basics right but have the
audacity to lecture us on leadership and other
aspects concerning telecoms in South
Africa.
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