The 20th meeting of the ITSO Advisory Committee (IAC) was held last 31 March and 1 April in Washington.
This IAC session was chaired by Jamaica (Ida-Gaye Warburton), with Poland (Piotr Dmochowski-Lipski) serving as vice-chair. The 28 participating delegates represented 13 of the 23 countries on the IAC, as well as two observer countries (Côte d’Ivoire and Portugal).
The ITSO Director-General (DG), José Toscano of Portugal, informed the IAC that owing to high indebtedness of the Intelsat operator and the latest financial developments, including the sharp fall in the company’s rating by rating agencies, he had asked the Intelsat representative to make special reference to the operator’s financial performance during his usual presentation to the Committee.
The Committee took note of the new ITSO financing agreement signed with the operator Intelsat on 4 December 2015, in fulfilment of the Public Service Agreement and covering the period from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2019. The validity period of the previous ITSO financing agreement, which began to be negotiated in early 2013, runs for three years from July of that year to 30 June 2016. From that date on, and per what was agreed to when Intelsat was restructured in 2000, the operator will finance the organisation, after the initial 12-year period during which ITSO was ‘self-financed’, as envisaged in the organisation’s privatisation process.
The DG also informed the Committee about the amendment to article XII (c) (ii) of the ITSO Agreement, which was ratified by 97 parties. If that number had reached a hundred formal adoptions, it would guarantee desirable protection of the ‘common heritage’, given that the new text’s entry into force will in practice prevent risk that satellites and corresponding orbital positions can be transferred/shifted to other operators without the imposition of public service obligations.
The new ITSO auditor, Frank & Company p.c., presented a second report on the audit of the organisation’s accounts, covering the period from 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2015 (financial year 2015). It attested to the conformity of ITSO’s accounts, which it held to be neutral, consistent, clear and without material errors.
The consultant Wolfgang Wagner submitted a second version of the ongoing ITSO study on the availability of information about coverage and interconnection of satellite communications done by other operators besides Intelsat in countries with Life Connectivity Obligation contracts (applicable to countries or regions that depend on the INTELSAT system to communicate with the exterior). The Committee commented on the study’s new version, including comments from the questionnaire sent to the parties since the last IAC session. The document indicates that finding alternatives to the international interconnection now offered by Intelsat, especially in landlocked countries and in the 20 states with the world’s lowest per capita income, may well be technically possible, though it is an expensive and hard-to-implement solution and therefore not advisable.
The Committee noted, commented and recommended to the DG that various documents should be submitted for approval to the next assembly of parties (AP37), scheduled for the autumn, namely concerning the budgets for financial years 2017 and 2018, implementation of the ITSO Strategy Plan for 2015-2016, extension of the ITSO objectives until 2020, extension of the ITSO Strategy Plan until 2018, connection between the ITSO Strategy Plan and the organisation’s budget and the DG’s report on the training initiative undertaken by ITSO with developing countries.
The deputy DG (Patrick Masambu of Uganda, in office since May 2010) presented on this occasion his candidacy for that position. Election of the new DG will take place during AP37, scheduled for 12-14 October 2016. This should likely be the last IAC session attended by the DG currently in office.
The new DG will in due time communicate to the parties the date of the next IAC meeting.
