Rubben Mohlaloga fraud conviction disqualifies him from serving as ICASA Chairperson

Note to Editors: Please find attached a soundbite by the DA Shadow Minister of Communications, Phumzile Van Damme MP. 

Rubben Mohlaloga, who has been recommended by the ANC in Parliament to serve as the Chairperson of the ICASA Council has this week been convicted of fraud, and is therefore disqualified from serving on the Council.

According to a statement released by the Hawks, Mohlaloga and three others, have been found guilty of defrauding the Land Bank of approximately R6 million in 2008. The three transferred funds from the Agri-BEE fund, money intended for poor farmers, into a trust account and bought a farm for R2 million as well as an X5 BMW and a BMW 118i for Mohlaloga, who was an ANC MP and the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee of Agriculture at the time.

The fact that he has been found guilty of fraud means that he no longer qualifies to serve on the ICASA council.

Section 6 of the ICASA Act states that “[a] person may not be appointed as a councillor if he or she has at any time been convicted, whether in the Republic of elsewhere, of theft, fraud, forgery or uttering a forged document, perjury, an offence in terms of the Corruption Act or any other offence involving dishonesty”.

Seeing that Mohlaloga is yet to be formally appointed to the ICASA Council by President Jacob Zuma, the responsibility now rests on him to immediately halt his appointment. The DA will write to President Zuma requesting that he does not appoint Mohlaloga to the ICASA Council.

It is well known that Mohlaloga has a chequered past and Parliament should not have approved his appointment, it did so despite the DA’s objection.

Our Communications entities have been crippled by corruption because of the ANC’s cadre deployment and political interference.

The DA will continue to use our platform in Parliament to fight for the integrity of our state entities and to prevent them from being overrun by compromised crooks in order to once again restore the public's faith in state entities.

Statement issued by Phumzile Van Damme MP, DA Shadow Minister of Communications, 19 January 2018