It reads like a script from a soap opera. Recent accounts of alleged internal strife at the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) serve to obscure key questions about the organisation. Valid or not, controversy like this is the last thing the regulator needs as it arrives at a crossroads, since the direction it takes will define its very existence.

The organisation`s chairman, Paris Mashile, has been the target of a number of attacks that have questioned his abilities as a leader and manager – attacks which he maintains are being spearheaded by “persons with hidden agendas”. Much of this is open to question, and if past experience is anything to go by, the furore will probably result in one of those independent commissions of enquiry our country is so fond of.