Wireless Business Solutions (WBS) can afford to pay the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) the ZAR60 million (US$6.7 million) it says it is owed in unpaid spectrum licence fees.
WBS chief executive officer (CEO) Thami Mtshali told Talk Radio 702 the firm was financially sound even if it were required to pay ICASA, though it disputes the figure.
Should ICASA require a figure as high as ZAR60 million, Mtshali said WBS would be “willing and able to pay it”.
ICASA visited the office of WBS last week and confiscated equipment in the latest twist in an ongoing dispute between the company and the regulator over alleged unpaid licence fees, causing disruption to Broadlink and iBurst customers.
The regulator said the confiscation was part of its “national drive to recover all outstanding licence fees from electronic communications, broadcasting and postal licensees”.
WBS subsequently accused ICASA of “malicious damage” after the regulator was ordered by the high court to return the communications equipment in an interdict on Friday.
Mtshali called the row with ICASA “just an act of bad luck” and “a culmination of a lot of other events”. He said both WBS and ICASA are unaware of how much money is owed, and claimed the firm had so far presented the regulator with “five or six settlement offers”.
