Tanzania’s telecoms regulator has fined six mobile phone operators Tsh552 million ($258,000) for laxity in sim card registration.

The fines come less than three weeks after the Tanzania Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) switched off 1,830,726 IMEIs.

A statement by TCRA acting director-general James Kilaba said managers of Airtel, Smart, Zantel, Vodacom, Tigo and Halotel were summoned to explain alleged irregularities in selling and recording customer credentials and activating SIM cards.

“Pursuant to the Electronic and Postal Communication Act, the six telecoms have been found guilty of various offences relating to sim cards sale and keeping proper records,” it said in a statement.

READ: Tanzania to switch off fake phones

TCRA has identified 1,713,337 invalid IMEIs (2.96 per cent of all IMEIs) and 117,389 duplicate IMEIs, which is 0.09 per cent of all IMEIs in operation, have been switched off. Tanzania is estrimated to have 39 million mobile phone subscribers.

The offences ranged from selling lines without checking the buyer’s ID or filling out registration forms to activate lines before they are sold.

Airtel Tanzania Ltd has been ordered to pay a total of Tsh182.5 million ($85,000) while Benson Informatics Ltd, trading as Smart will have to pay Tsh17 million ($7,930).

MIC Tanzania Ltd, trading as Tigo, will have to pay Tsh188.5 million ($87,925) while the newest entrant in the mobile telephony market, Viettel Tanzania Ltd, trading as Halotel, was fined Tsh107 million ($50,000).

Vodacom Tanzania and and Zanzibar Telecom Ltd (Zantel) were fined Tsh96.5 million ($45,000) and Tsh57 million ($26,590) respectively.

The bulk of the fines were imposed for selling lines without relevant identification details.

For this offence, Airtel and Tigo were fined Tsh93.500,000 ($43,612), each, Smart Tsh20 million ($4,665), Halotel Tsh72.5 million ($33,700) and Vodacom Tsh24 million ($11,200).

The other offence that earned the telcos fines was activating lines before registering them. Here, Tigo was found to have activated 82 lines before selling them while Halotel activated 69 lines, followed by Airtel (65), Vodacom (38), Zantel (14) and Smart (6). The fines for this offence totalled Tsh132 million ($61,625).

Unauthorised mobile line distributors.

“Along with these fines, the service providers have been instructed to present to TCRA, by July 15, a list of distribution and sale agents countrywide according to section 92(2) of EPOCA),” said Mr Kilaba in a statement.

He added that the service providers had been instructed to stop using unauthorised mobile line distributors. Authorised distributors, according to TRCA directives, will have to register permanent residence and taxpayer identification number (TIN).

Tanzania is not alone in demanding registration of sim cards as other East African countries have laws on the same.

For example, the Kenyan government introduced a policy to ensure mobile subscribers in the country register their SIM cards in 2012. The move was aimed at reducing mobile phone-related fraud and other criminal activities.

Mobile money subscribers, who have not registered their sim cards risk a  jail term of six months in jail or a fine of up to Ksh300,000 ($3,000) while  those who give false information about their identity risk a fine of up to Ksh100,000 ($1,000) or a six-month jail term.

On the other hand, dealers who are found selling unregistered sim cards are liable to a penalty of  Ksh500,000 ($5,000) or jail term of  up to 12 months.
It was previously easy to buy and discard mobile lines, a loophole that criminals exploited to defraud people of money among other unlawful activities.

Lines were selling for as little as Ksh20 (US cents 20) and without any form of registration, leave alone the seller offering any form of identification.
Over in Uganda, the regulator — Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) — in October last year gave telecoms companies up to November 30 to switch off unregistered sim cards.

On its part, the Rwanda Utility Regulatory Authority (RURA) is working on a system to track fake sim card registrations.

Beata Mukangabo, in charge of customer protection at RURA, said the regulator will allow subscribers to track sim cards that are registered using their IDs so that they can report sim cards that are not theirs.

Now subscribers can verify the numbers that are registered on them using a USSD code and report numbers that are not theirs to telecom operators.
RURA also said it plans also to limit the number of sim cards an individual can own  as a measure to curb fraud.

Additional reporting by Jean Pierre Afadhali, James Anyanzwa and Charles Mwanguhya