It is built on the extremely shaky premise that regulation is a good thing. Despite the fact that South Africa is awash with examples where regulation has not fixed the problem it was intended to resolve, and at times has made things worse.

There are many who would argue that the global financial crisis was because of regulation, not despite it. The crisis happened in the era of Sorbanes-Oxley, and some of the first casualties were those lending institutions created by legislation to provide sub-prime lending.

ICASA has a dismal track record with regulation. On issues where regulation could help – such as quality of service, open access, digital terrestrial television and interconnect rates – they have a lot of work to do. When it came to enforcing regulation, they were bludgeoned into silence by expensive corporate lawyers.

ICASA is also an excellent example of why having a regulator is problematic. Political meddling and lack of capacity made the organisation moribund for several years. This held an entire industry back – the industry it was supposed to benefit.

Regulation is a blunt weapon: it should be used sparingly to ensure industry participants compete fairly and equitably, and to manage scarce resources like radio spectrum. It should not be used to promote political agendas, to protect cronies or incumbents, or to mould an industry to the whims of an ephemeral politician.

I have plenty of sympathy for the enormous challenges ICASA has ahead of it. But I think their first priority should be to reduce the amount of regulation they are responsible for.