The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) welcomes a decisive victory in the recent regulatory changes by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) on the rollover of unused prepaid data and airtime. This development is the direct result of sustained political pressure, principled parliamentary intervention, and consistent engagement by the EFF in defence of the constitutional right of our people to access information.
For years, South Africans, particularly the poor, the unemployed, the youth, and those in rural areas, have been subjected to exploitative in which prepaid data and airtime expire arbitrarily, despite having been fully paid for. This practice has entrenched the digital divide, undermined human dignity, and restricted access to education, employment opportunities, public services and democratic participation. The EFF has always maintained that data and airtime are not perishable goods, do not rot, and therefore should not expire.
ICASA has now amended the End-User and Subscriber Service Charter Regulations to change how unused prepaid data and airtime are treated. Under the revised regulatory framework, mobile network operators are required to roll over unused data, voice and SMS bundles at the end of their validity period, rather than allowing them to expire and be forfeited. This rollover must occur automatically and without any additional cost to the consumer, provided the subscriber remains active on the network.
The regulations also introduce provisions that allow for the transfer of unused bundles between subscribers on the same network, while strengthening transparency obligations on operators in relation to bundle usage, depletion notifications, and out-of-bundle charges.
This victory is the outcome of a long and deliberate campaign by the EFF, waged inside Parliament and beyond. The EFF consistently raised this matter since 2024 in the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies, where we directly confronted ICASA and the Ministry on the irrationality and injustice of expiry mandates. We further escalated the struggle by engaging the Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition, locating the issue within the broader framework of consumer protection, market abuse, and monopolistic practices in the telecommunications sector.
In parallel, the EFF pursued bilateral engagements with telecommunications companies, including MTN, Vodacom and others, making it clear that their profit-driven business models were incompatible with the constitution. Central to the EFF’s argument, and now conceded by ICASA, was that expiry mandates undermine the constitutional right to access information. In a digital society, access to information is is a basic requirement for a dignified life.
However, this victory does not mark the end of the struggle. While the rollover of unused data and airtime is a significant concession, data in South Africa remains prohibitively expensive, and rollover periods remain insufficient. The next phase of the EFF’s fight will therefore focus on the high cost of data, the extension of rollover periods, and the complete dismantling of exploitative pricing models that punish the poor for being poor.
The EFF has a complex relationship with the South African Communist Party (SACP).
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