NCRF has submitted a written submission and honourable members should view these submissions as views in the interest of the collective and not viewed as inputs of individual community sound broadcasters. If some of the broadcasters need to present their individual views they should not be prejudiced by this written submission or oral presentation. NCRF's own perspectives and views are in accordance with its core business, which is that of advocacy and lobbing for the diversification of the airwaves and the creation of community sound broadcasting services with more support from its member stations.

This proposed legislation presents an opportunity towards the transformation of the current telecommunications and broadcasting services. The NCRF welcomes the discussion of this Bill as it poses the new regime for the development of communication in the Republic. The NCRF supports the central purpose of the Bill. The is a need to establish a new statutory regime for licensing which is flexible and responsive to the changing needs of the communications sector in the public interest. NCRF hopes that such legislation will assist in creating growth and development in the converged market and increased confidence in the development of information communication environment for grassroots communities; redeveloping the new regime of consumer choice and through enhanced competition, better quality of service and create affordable communications services.

Before we discuss the provisions of the Bill, I would like to take the Honourable members on a tour of the NCRF:

Chairperson the NCRF was established in 1993 and incorporated as Association registered as a section 21 company in 2001 In this regard,

• To promote the ideals, principles and role of community radio, as an integral part of the broadcasting environment of a democratic South Africa;
• To promote the participation of historically disadvantaged communities at all levels of community broadcasting systems;
• To facilitate the establishment and development of community radio stations throughout the country;
• To encourage networking and co-operation between community radio stations;
• To advocate for the role of community radio within institutions responsible for legislating and regulating broadcasting policy, as well as popularise the value of community broadcasting systems within the reconstruction and development of South Africa;
• To promote the production of high quality and innovative programming from diverse sources to serve local programming goals [LPG]
• To promote democracy, development and empowerment of communities through community radio.

The NCRF represents the interests of 82 on air community sound broadcasting stations, 50 community Radio initiatives and 10 associate members (service providers in the community radio sector, community radio broadcast to 12 million listeners across South Africa as such bringing the community sound broadcasting services to be the 2^nd largest broadcast industry in the country.

NCRF has created a pie chart that will be useful to Honourable members in creating a better understanding of the NCRF.

As said in our written submission that this bill is a step in the right direction much as a response in the interest of community sound and audio visual services,

In making these submissions, NCRF believes that its experience in Community broadcasting services will be of use to honourable members in developing a comprehensive legal framework for Convergence Act.

NCRF also wishes to emphasis that, whilst we move to convergence and digitization, we must ensure that we address the problems faced with existing processes, which have hindered the achievement of all to freedom of expression and information. We therefore looked at how the Bill will facilitate addressing for example the long delays, which community radio stations have faced in getting licensed. NCRF believes that some of the aspects that we put in the broadcasting Act 1999 and IBA Act were not intended to be put to stifle the growth of community broadcasting but it was out of the pain cost by the system of broadcasting in the republic during the dusty day's of the apartheid regime. Therefore we propose that some of the sections of the IBA Act need to be transferred to the community broadcasting regulatory framework. And the Act should uphold the principles within which the regulation of community broadcasting services and systems will and must be directed by the Authority.

Finally, the NCRF wishes to allude honourable members that our comments on this Bill are made as an input to the bill to contribute towards an enabling convergence framework that will enable us to continue to advocate and lobby for broadcasting and communication services for the grassroots community with a focus to community broadcasting services.

Most of the definitions does not reflect the existence of the public interest as it fall short towards the whole notion of the knowledge based societies therefore NCRF proposes the following definitions: -

"Access" -means selling, leasing of communication network facilities, to another person, for the purpose of providing communication service and to the communication network at affordable cost

"Convergence" – integration of diverse communication systems, application, networks services or any other communication carriage contemplated by this Act or in the related legislation.

"Knowledge Based Economy (KBE)" – where ICT is extensively used to enhance knowledge so that higher human capital brings further improvement to the diverse development of the economy.

‘‘Community broadcasting’’ means a broadcasting service which—

(a) Is fully controlled by a non-profit entity and carried on for non-profit

Purposes;

(b) Serves a particular community;

(c) Encourages members of the community served by it or persons associated with

Or promoting the interests of such community to participate in the selection

And provision of programmes to be broadcast in the course of such

Broadcasting service; and

(d) May be funded by donations, grants, sponsorships or advertising or

Membership fees, or by any combination of the aforementioned; NCRF would like the propose the addition of two major principles that we believe can be of assistance in strengthening the growth of community radio in the republic.

1. Provide a legal framework that will enable ICT to contribute towards Achieving National Development Goals [NDG] in line with millennium development goal [MDG]; and

2. Transform South Africans into a knowledge-based Society through the application of legal framework standards of convergence and ICT.

Therefore the NCRF proposes that the bill should insert the following: -

(l) Provide assistance and support towards diverse human resource development within the communications sector;

(r) Promote the diverse development of public, commercial and community broadcasting services, which are responsive to the needs of the public;

(s) Ensure that diverse broadcasting services, viewed collectively—

(i) Promote the provision and development of a diverse range of sound and

Television broadcasting services on a national, regional and local level,

Those cater for all language and cultural groups and provide entertainment,

Education and information;

(ii) Provide for regular—

(a) diverse News services;

(bb) actuality diverse programmes on matters of public interest;

NCRF is of the view that if the proposed objectives have to go a long way it should incorporate the human rights approach to this section in order to the enforce the developmental goal/agenda of this bill that include the development of the diverse knowledge-based Society as the centre towards this diverse developmental area.

The Convergence Bill for example does provide for the empowerment of historically disadvantaged persons and communities, this Bill does not ensure that such empowerment will be broad based rather than focusing on individuals. Therefore NCRF propose that principles on the knowledge base society remain the tool and system that must be entrenched to enrich the second economy towards the knowledge based economic systems.

In this regard the NCRF would like to note that it is important in ensuring that services are viable (and that opportunities are provided to historically disadvantaged communities to participate in such services).

Create favourable climate that public interest access information and communication services the e-commerce and encourages communities, organisations and individuals to invest in and use information and communication technologies the by developing the information society. (Such as Internet availability and affordability, hardware and software availability and affordability, ICT’s in schools and electronic commerce) should be influenced by public interest and not be all-inclusive market driven.

It should be public in nature. And should endeavours to promote the empowerment of historically disadvantaged persons; this bill falls short on clear strategies to achieve this noble goal. The bill needs to make reference to broad-based black empowerment and the development of knowledge-based society.

Inserting the above will enable civil society media to play a meaningful role in the provision of communications services owing to our historical background that is characterised, inter alia, by virtually non-existent economic muscle. Not unless and until appropriate strategies to empower communities are in place, government’s good intentions to bridge disparities between different groups of society will simply die on the drawing board. [honourable members ] The act should be structured in such a way that it recognises a myriad factors that characterise and shape the South African Society to be information driven.

NCRF propose that Regulations should be made by the Authority and placed in the ICASA Act so that there is a consolidation of all the Authority’s powers and functions in one Act.

Licensing should be left to the authority to administer. Collectively it must be viewed in light of the fact that this should be a pure administrative competence of the authority. NCRF believe that experience has prevailed in the communication sector and much as it has set the precedence, mistakes of that nature should not be promoted as it creates political turmoil.

The authority should be viewed collectively licensing in the public interest and should apply the notion of equitable licensing in a non-discriminatory systems without any prejudice the all relevant parties and it may deem fed by public be it government, commercial and community.

This bill should empower the authority to license in the public interest be it networks or individual and class licenses.

The bill should also make provision to the impact study to convinces all relevant parties to license, parliament should be empowered to conduct and impact study towards any licensing this does not exclude commercial and community institutions and organisation but be applicable to all tiers of communication services including the information society.

Impact studies should meet the authority standards by all tiers of society be it public, commercial and community. This should be in line with chapter 3 subsections 3 of this bill.

Subsection 9 .4 © contradict freedom of expression, right to information and article 19 of the universal human rights declaration. Therefore propose the more investigation be made by in this regard. NCRF propose the humanization in this regard

NCRF propose the deletion of section 9(2)(e) As this section refers to all individual licences, this would involve more Ministerial involvement in the licensing process than is currently provided for existing legislation. This provision should appear contrary to principles of public Administrative Law and may also be unconstitutional as it will include broadcasting licences.

NCRF hereby present to honourable member it's proposed licensing regime and newly proposed licensing framework. [PowerPoint]

NCRF is of the view that regulatory Licensing is not the only tool that can be used to achieve policy objectives. In the case of application services, NCRF believes that licensing is not an appropriate tool and therefore it should be included in our licensing model. Therefore there is a need to bench mark authorisation of conditions within which the application services will be regulated. More investigation needs to be done in this regard by the authority through public enquiry

NCRF believes that, individual and class licences are not conceived of as being categories of licence, but rather types of licences within broad categories of licensable activities or markets.

NCRF advocate for Light Touch in areas of non-profit licences categories, In these jurisdictions, individual licences are granted for activities where a low degree of regulatory control is needed and customised or special licence conditions are required for each licence, in addition to standard terms and conditions. Class licences are issued with standard terms and conditions for a specific class or sub-category of licence [such as community sound broadcasting services which does not require a high degree of regulatory control. Such a licensing system allows a regulator to concentrate on those licences, which require more attention and reduce the regulatory or administrative burden of licences, which do not require a similar degree of focus.

NCRF propose that the dual regulatory system articulated by the bill hamper Chapter 9 Section 192, act 108 of 1996 the Constitution of South Africa that provides for the establishment of an independent broadcasting regulator of which should not be left out for the policy maker and directives to apply this rule, part of this link to section 78 of the IBA act that empowers ICASA to make regulation without any involvement from the executive arm of the government.

Subsection (4) would hamper the Authority from implementing regulation that would promote small business opportunities in this sector.

In terms of national economic policy it might be necessary to allow the Minister to retain control in setting market entry dates for large communication network services. However, in line with the amendments recommended in our submission on how to deal with individual and class licences, NCRF advocates that section 5(4) and (5) need to be amended so that they do not have the unintended consequence of limiting small operators from engaging in self provisioning of, for example, broadcasting signal distribution.

NCRF propose the total deletion of section 9(2)(e) that it requires the Authority to submit to the Minister the proposed licence conditions for approval. As this section refers to all individual licences, this would involve more Ministerial involvement in the licensing process than is currently provided for existing legislation. This provision also appears contrary to principles of public Administrative Law and may also be unconstitutional, as it will include broadcasting licences.

Section 10 needs to be rephrased as it negates the public interest and process in this regard i.e. Local Loop Unbundling will not be achieved in the current regime unless, this bill provide for public process. NCRF proposes that we also refer amendments of individual licence to regulatory procedural matters including consolidated procedure taking into account the provisions of the IBA Act, the Telecommunications Act and related regulations.

NCRF is of the view that Section 13 should be "transfer of individual licence" and section 19C should deal with "empowerment, ownership and control of licensees".

The Bill should mandate ICASA to regulate effectively the transfer and empowerment, ownership and control including the transfer of licences in General.

One of the major challenges facing the Community Broadcasting Sector is affordable signal distribution service. The Convergence Bill no longer makes provision for a common carrier broadcast signal distributor as was provided for in section 37 of the IBA Act. This is a major concern to the NCRF as the situation could arise in future where ICASA licences a community broadcaster, and this broadcaster is then unable to go on air as it is unable to afford commercial signal distribution tariffs.

The NCRF believes that there are 2 options available to Parliament to deal with this issue:

Option 1: Re-instate the concept of common carrier as provided for in the IBA Act

Option 2: Section 81(1) of the Convergence Bill provides that all licensees, including broadcasters, must contribute to the Universal Service Fund (USF).

If the concept of a common carrier broadcasting signal distributor is not going to be included in the Convergence legislation, then we submit that community broadcasters should be able to access the USF funds.

Many players in the broadcasting industry have opposed contributing to the USF because they contribute to the MDDA. However, the MDDA is not involved in the establishment of broadcasting signal distribution infrastructure.

Section 33 (1) of the Broadcasting Act provides that:

ICASA has not undertaken such an inquiry, despite being mandated by the Broadcasting Act to do so. The absence of such an inquiry has resulted in the problems currently being experienced by the community-broadcasting sector with respect to the affordability of signal distribution services.

One of the most crucial issues confronting community sound radio broadcasters is the move to digital broadcasting services, Access to spectrum in a highly competitive environment where frequencies could become a commodity like any other, must be available to all players, big and small.

It is for this reason that NCRF seeks clarification on the provisions of Chapter 5 of the Convergence Bill, which deals with spectrum matters.

It is not clear what type of Plan is being referred to in section 34 of the Convergence Bill.

There are, essentially, two broad categories of frequency plan:

• Allocation plans; and
• Assignment plans

The Convergence Bill appears to collapse these 2 very different plans into a single plan.

Allocation plans demarcate different parts of the spectrum for use by different services e.g. broadcasting, fixed, mobile etc.

Assignment plans, however, deal with the licensing of spectrum to individual users. Consequently, NCRF submits that it is not possible to have a single "radio frequency plan" as provided for in section 34 of the Bill, and requests that this section be redrafted. Once spectrum has been allocated for digital broadcasting, then the assignment plan must ensure that there is sufficient spectrum available to meet the requirements of community broadcasters.

NCRF propose that Section 47 pertaining to wholesale rates be moved to the proposed Chapter 7 dealing with Competition, Tariffs and Interconnection.

NCRF support the definition of essential facility in the Bill, and believe that all undersea cables and landing stations must be declared an essential facility. This will have enormous significance for the introduction of meaningful competition and access to facilities and will contribute to the much-needed decrease in pricing of international bandwidth.

NCRF therefore welcomes the inclusion in the Bill of section 42(8)(a) and 42(9) and strongly support their retention in the final Act. Any existing contractual concerns emanating from current exclusivity provisions can be addressed through the drafting of transitional provisions.

NCRF advocates for the inclusion in the Schedule the amendments to the ICASA Act to include a general empowering provision for the Authority under "Functions of the Authority" (section 4(3)) that reads as follows:

NCRF strongly believe that the local loop must be unbundled and non-discriminatory basis the local loop must be provided to other operators on a transparent and cost-oriented basis.

Section 48 "This chapter applies only to broadcasting service licensees".

NCRF propose that the section 48 should be as specific as possible and be extended to apply for broadcast signal distribution licensees, and broadcasting multichannel distribution licensees [multiplexing]

NCRF strongly support the clause that on the Prohibition on granting of broadcasting service licences to party-political entities.

[Add] No person who is in a position party-political entities may be in a position to control a radio or television licence be it community, commercial or public in the republic.

Record of programmes broadcast by broadcasting service licensees

(1) A broadcasting service licensee must— NCRF propose that the retaining of records by 60 day and not 30 day.

Much as the NCRF support this section it is off the view that the incentives needs to be attended to empower the complains commission to act in line with the act

The code of conduct should provide to remedy to enforce the licensing conditions and also incentives to compliance. This may include the exemption on regulatory requirement and the relaxation of the programming requirements and tax incentives if the broadcaster complies with the codes

Put if not the revoking and suspending the licence should apply across the board be it commercial, public and community.

National Community Radio Forum propose the following section Community Broadcasting Service Obligations [CBSO] be inserted in the bill as under broadcasting services

NCRF is of the view and convinced that for the community broadcasting services to succeed it should be subjected to social obligation as posed to capital obligation this obligation should be inserted in this bill in order to reduce the instability of this industry this include but not limited to: -

1. Over and above the financial and regulatory aspects of corporate governance, the act should encourage for the integrated approach to good governance in the interests of a wide range its stakeholders.
2. Although groundbreaking at the time, the evolving global economic environment together with recent legislative developments, broadcaster should have acknowledges King II that there is a move away from the single bottom line (that is, non profit for shareholders) to a triple bottom line, which embraces the socio-developmental economic, environmental and social aspects of its institutional activities. In the words of the King Committee:
3. The company/institution/organisation must be open to institutional activism and there must be greater emphasis on the sustainable and/or non-financial aspects of its performance.
4. Boards must apply the test of fairness, accountability, responsibility and transparency to all acts or omissions and be accountable to the company/stakeholder and the community it service but also responsive and responsible towards the social objectives of the community it services.
5. The correct balance between conformance with governance principles and performance in an entrepreneurial market economy must be found, but this will be specific to each company/organisation."
6. be obligate to comply with corporate governance and responsive to public interest
7. The regulation of community sound broadcasting services should enforce and allow the interventions of the authority where needs arise and be in a position to empower the communities to own and control such services.
8. Every community broadcaster should report at least annually on the nature and extent of its social, Transformation, ethical, safety, health and environmental management policies and practices.
9. The board should, in determining what is relevant for disclosure, take into account the environment in which the company/institution /organisation operates.
10. Community broadcaster board should disclose:
11. The Annual Strategy Plan and policies the company/institution/organisation has in place to address and manage the potential impact of on the company/institution/organisation;
12. The community broadcaster should provide the authority with formal procurement policies that take into account black, economic empowerment;
13. Whether it has developed and implemented a definitive set of standards and practices in the company based on a clearly articulated code of conduct.
14. Principles of reliability, relevance, clarity, comparability, timeliness and verifiability should govern a broadcaster's public disclosure of non-financial and /or financial information.
15. Community broadcaster should value the diversity of approach, values and contribution which women and black people bring to the table and should develop mechanisms positively to reinforce the richness of diversity.
16. Community broadcaster should disclose the nature of policies and practices in place to promote equal opportunities for the previously disadvantaged in terms of realising their full potential and reaching executive levels in the company.

It should be an offence to contravene any of this obligations. A conviction would be rendered liable to a fine or revoking and or suspension of the licence. And once this licence is been revoked or suspended ICASA should apply public administrative law and Section 13 of chapter 3 of this bill should apply in this regard. NCRF propose that this view be looked in light of the fact that we need to strengthen the industry to be accountable to its owners not that it is transferred on the broadcast operator within the geographic area of jurisdiction.

Honourable members this is a lessen learned by the community broadcasting sector fro a school of thought that said if you push for deregulation were there was no regulation then you will land in trouble.

Unregulated areas of the Broad made a big cap and through experience and challenges we would like request for the insertion of the principle of the corporate governance.

The Authority should develop on Consumer ICT Regulation that will ensure the highest standards of consumer protection and promotes fair marketplace for consumers.  The Authority must conduct an inquiry to determine consumer regulation that focus consumer issues

We support the bill as it mandates the Authority to develop principles for an efficient and transparent marketplace for consumers and mechanisms for implementation of these principles. Ensures effective enforcement of consumer laws in an age of knowledge-based society.

NCRF supports the Establishment of Communications and ICT Museum, information communication technology with the notion that it will be driven by communities on the ground, on hands and locally driven.

Section 72 should be deleted in its entirety as it leads to transitional implications, which will prohibit broadcasting services [community broadcasting to be specific] not being able to continue broadcasting legally until their licenses are converted.

The NCRF notes that the functions of the Universal Service Agency in section 74 are limited to communications services and communications network services.

The contributions to the Universal Service Fund, NCRF submit, would be correctly placed if it were to be drawn from these two licence categories. Section 81 (1) however stipulates that contributions should be drawn from all licensees including broadcasting service licensees.

As the NCRF is aware that some broadcaster are contributing towards Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) but this contribution is voluntary and is driven by the will to contribute

NCRF believes that MDDA has to exist to develop and diversify media services and it is not in a position to provide infrastructure development in the lower end of the market, more so the subsidization of infrastructure such as the signal distribution to non profit broadcaster [community broadcasting services]. For the intake of the community television the industry needs a massive transmission network and technical resources that will be accessed by communities in the ground toward the development of Community Television. NCRF is of the view that the broadcasting services that makes profit needs to reinvest such resources to the development of the local media infrastructure in order to diversify and build the diverse knowledge base society.

If the provisions of this section are promulgated as proposed in the Bill, it would have the consequence that broadcasting service licensees would be subject to double taxation. Our recommendation is that broadcasting services be excluded from the provisions of this section.

It is clear from this Chapter that the transitional provisions envisage a huge re-regulation and licence conversion project by the Authority. This project will require the allocation of considerable financial and human resources and may divert regulatory attention from opening up markets and licences to new players.

While it is important to have transitional provisions when moving from one legislative system to another, these provisions should cause as little disruption as possible to licensees and should be seamless in nature.

NCRF has proposed some amendments to section 84 and section 85. Most importantly, subsection (4) should be read in light to provide for "existing licences must be converted by the Authority within 12 months from the commencement date of this Act".

Taking consideration that existing licences (including spectrum licences) are all those licences ever issued in terms of the IBA Act, Telecommunications Act, Broadcasting Act and Sentech Act.

NCRF humbly propose that ICASA be granted the flexibility to determine appropriate timeframes with due regard to the rights of licensees and the principles of effective regulation and this should be done in the light of public process.

NCRF is working on a skills development study to inform and prepare

community-broadcasters. Project is called e-readiness for community broadcasting services and is in partnership with MDDA, MAPPPSeta and SANGONET. We hope this process will enable community broadcasters to engage in the new communication regime.

NCRF thank you for the opportunity to present our views on the Convergence Bill and look forward to participating further in this process. We welcome your questions on our submission.