Zim court strikes down telecoms regulations

Zim court strikes down telecoms regulations

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By Staff Reporter
04/02//04
THE High Court has declared null and void provisions of the Postal and Telecommunications (International Telecommunications Services) Regulations, which sought to bar private telecommunications firms from operating international telecommunications services.

The statutory instrument was crafted by acting Transport and Communications minister Jonathan Moyo and was gazetted last week.

It stipulated that public mobile phone network operator Tel One would, with effect from 31 January 2004, provide access to all international telecommunications services and provide interconnection capacity for all other public licensed telecommunications operators, including voice-over internet protocol.

Econet, through its lawyers Kantor and Immerman, filed an urgent court application challenging the regulations, saying they were tantamount to reinstating the government’s monopoly over the telecommunications industry, which was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1998.

The company cited the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe, the Minister of Transport and Communications and the government-controlled Tel One as the first, second and third respondents respectively.

Justice Yunus Omerjee yesterday pointed out that the regulations would effectively amend Econet’s licence, which gives the firm the right to control and operate a limited facility for the transmission and receipt of international cellular traffic originating and terminating in Econet’s network.

He ordered that “the provisions of the Postal and Telecommunications (International Telecommunications Services) Regulations S.I. 18/04 are hereby declared null, void and of no effect to the applicant (Econet) in so far and to the extent that they purport to amend the applicant’s licence”.

Justice Omerjee added: “Counsel for all respondents were of the view that . . . the order to be given should be final in nature and not an interim or provisional order.”

He said the costs of the matter should be paid by the Ministry of Transport and Communications, which “on the concession by counsel caused the promulgation of the statutory instrument”.

In a letter dated January 20 to the chief executive of the United States-based Intelsat Limited, a Mr C Kullman, Moyo said the only telecommunications company with the right to operate the Intelsat satellite segment into Zimbabwe is TelOne (Pvt) Ltd. The company is the successor to the Posts and Telecommunications Corporation, who are the authorised signatories on behalf of the Government.

In response, Intelsat senior vice president for regulatory affairs, David Meltzer said Intelsat only had one customer from Zimbabwe, TelOne, and that there were no other persons or companies in Zimbabwe that had signed a contract with Intelsat and were using Intelsat satellite capacity.

"Nevertheless, it is possible that Intelsat customers outside of Zimbabwe may have sub-leased capacity to one or more third parties in Zimbabwe," Meltzer said.

"As it is impossible for Intelsat to police the activities of our customers’ customers, we necessarily rely upon the local regulator to enforce its laws prohibiting unauthorised transmissions into or out of their country. Intelsat does, however, expressly require our customer to obtain all licences required to acquire and utilise our space segment.

"Accordingly, Intelsat will investigate the matter if you are able to identify the source of the unauthorised use of Intelsat capacity.

"Please accept this letter as a sincere commitment by Intelsat to fully investigate this matter and take appropriate action against any customer found to be in violation of the customer’s contractual obligations."
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