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The Democratic Alliance (DA) will lodge an official complaint with the Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, against the Minister of Communications, Stella Ndabeni Abrahams, following reports that she is stalling the release of ICASA’s budgetary allocation over the authority’s refusal to scrap the 5G cellular network announcement from the Annual Performance Plan it submitted to her office.

Minister Abrahams allegedly wants to ‘hijack’ the announcement of the 5G cellular network and the sale of new spectrum for local mobile operations for her own election promises.

This is not only a violation of her executive authority as a cabinet Minister but is also a clear breach of the constitutionally enshrined precept which separates party and state, where state apparatus are now being used to pursue narrow party political interests.

By directly interfering in the work of a Chapter 9 institution, Minister Abrahams has breached the constitutional guardrails which protect the independence of ICASA.

The case before the Public Protector is clear, Minister Abrahams must be held accountable for breaching the law and acting in a manner that is not consistent with upholding the independence of a Chapter 9 institution.

Minister Abrahams cannot be allowed to hold South Africa’s Communications sector to ransom through deliberate political actions that are not in the public interest, but seek to salvage the waning political fortunes of her party, the ANC.

It is patently clear that executive overreach, which was used extensively during the Zuma administration to facilitate state capture, is still entrenched in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s purported ‘New Dawn’.

With a just a few days left before the general elections on the 8th of May, the DA is the only party that has committed itself to bringing out change that roots out the culture of impunity and lawlessness that has become synonymous with the ANC government.

Issued by The DA