Pretoria – The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is reviewing its day to day business to align itself accordingly in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
In view of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on Sunday, 15 March 2020, ICASA has activated the crisis management initiatives as required by the organisation’s Business Continuity Policy to ensure its preparedness to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following decisions have been taken in this regard:

1. Precautionary measures

• All public hearings have been suspended; ICASA will continue to monitor and assess the situation in the four (4) weeks cycle;
• All applications and equipment that accompany applications for typeapproval will not be accepted from individuals. Applicants are therefore requested not to send any equipment to ICASA, when the need arises for equipment to be submitted, the applicant will be informed by an ICASA official to submit.
• Applicants can make use of our online service (https://online.icasa.org.za/) to submit type-approval applications.
• All other applications such as the expected pre-registrations for community broadcasting services have been extended from 31 March 2020 to 30 April 2020.

2. Visitors to ICASA premises

• All visits (both local and international) to the ICASA premises have been suspended until further notice including customer walk-ins.
• We are reducing face-to-face meetings by encouraging the use of telephones, email correspondence and video/teleconferencing in lieu of in-person gatherings, particularly for meetings with clients or
  stakeholders.
• All consumer-related queries must be sent to consumer@icasa.org.za, while all other enquiries are sent to info@icasa.org.za.

3. Travel

• The Council of ICASA has taken the decision to suspend all forms of international and domestic travel from the 17 March 2020 – 17 April 2020.
• All essential domestic air travel to be undertaken will be dealt with on a case to case basis.
• All employees who have travelled and entered South Africa from high-risk countries since mid-February have been asked to present themselves for testing.

“We are cognisant of the fact that the spread of the virus will have an effect on our business. However, ICASA is in full support of government initiatives in curbing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic; but we will endeavour to adhere to our turnaround times as contemplated in our respective Divisional standard operating procedures. Any other delays will be communicated on time to our respective stakeholders”, says ICASA CEO, Willington Ngwepe.
Ends…

For all media enquiries please contact:
Paseka Maleka
Tel : (012) 568 3455
Cell : 079 509 0702
Email : pmaleka@icasa.org.za