Some six months after a formal complaint was lodged with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) by a concerned group of specialist magazine publishers against the South African Post Office (SAPO), the matter is finally to be heard.

The complainants are collectively represented by Bouwer Kobeli Morabe Attorneys, and include Brooke Pattrick, Creamer Media, Crown Publications, EE Publishers, Interact Media Defined, Now Media, Technews Publishing and TE Trade Events.

Spokesperson for the group of publishers, Chris Yelland, said that in terms of the relevant legislation, Icasa was tasked with the monitoring of SAPO to ensure the conditions of its licence were met, and to hear and deal with complaints against the licensee where alleged breaches of licence conditions occured.

The complainants were asking Icasa to consider and review its numerous complaints against SAPO and the financial and other damage to the magazine publishing industry caused by SAPO's extended failure to meet its licence conditions during a protracted strike, and to sanction SAPO accordingly.

This could include punitive financial sanctions against SAPO; entertaining alternative licence applications to that of SAPO; considering additional licence applications to supplement the activities of SAPO; or even the removal of SAPO's currently exclusive licence.

After a long process of apparent stone-walling by SAPO, the matter has been set down for hearing on July 2, 2015, by the Icasa Complaints and Compliance Committee at the Icasa offices in Sandton. The hearing will be open to the media and the public.

The complainants said that SAPO’s answering affidavit failed to deal with any of the merits of the complaints levelled against it, and that SAPO instead raised numerous procedural and technical objections, namely prescription, impossibility of performance, vague and embarrassing allegations and a lack of factual material, which were not relevant or applicable to these proceedings.
 
“The tone and contents of SAPO’s answering affidavit was in keeping with the utter disregard that SAPO has had for the mechanism by which SAPO is meant to be held to account by its regulator, Icasa,” said Yelland. 

The complainants in this matter said they had been met with numerous delays caused by SAPO, which “is not an approach that should ever be taken by a State-owned entity”. At the hearing of this matter the complainants’ legal representatives would refer to relevant case law in this regard.

The publishers were also considering a possible class action for damages sustained by them resulting from the failure of SAPO to meet its licence conditions and statutory obligations. However, before such class action, the publishers would follow all other avenues of due process, including the formal complaint to Icasa.