Chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies, Khusela Diko, says there is no technical reason why mobile data should ever expire for South African consumers.

This follows an oversight visit by MPs to MTN’s headquarters in Roodepoort today, amidst an ongoing court battle launched by MTN and Vodacom against regulator Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA).

COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE VISITS MTN HEADQUARTERS

Parliament, Sunday, 26 July 2026 – The Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies will tomorrow visit the @MTNza headquarters in Roodepoort, Gauteng, as part of its ongoing programme of engagement with key… pic.twitter.com/CrrF9ddO03

— Khusela Diko (@KhuselaS) July 27, 2026

The telecommunications giants are seeking relief from ICASA’s updated End-User and Subscriber Service Charter rules, which govern data rollover, bundle depletion, and transfer of minutes and megabytes.

Diko explains the purpose of their engagements.

“When we are engaging MTN and the other mobile network operators in this issue, it is not to seek to get ICASA to change its view on certain things. But to understand what are the challenges that industry faces in this regard. Now, these regulations when they came out earlier on, this year, they were very widely welcomed by members of the public because we’ve never understood why data must expire. And I think this is simplistically for us what this comes down to. We understand that there are infrastructure management challenges, there are financial management challenges. We don’t think that there’s a technical reason for the use it to lose their principle. And that’s what we’re trying to engage them on here.”

Video | Vodacom and MTN take legal action against ICASA’s new mobile data expiry rules:

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