Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa
Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa, has asked the government to impose hefty fines on telecom companies in Uganda that are selling unregistered SIM cards as part of their punishment for harboring fraudsters that end up defrauding and committing crimes with their unregistered SIM cards.
He cited a recent scenario where one Eng. Byarugaba has sent him and other MPs messages under the contact number 0766881917, demanding the MPs send money for the transportation of transformers to their constituency, saying the fraudster had earlier sent the message and the Deputy Speaker asked MTN to block the number, only for the same person to switch to another SIM card.
“Now, Minister for ICT, we registered the numbers. We were told that all the numbers that weren’t registered were removed from the network. In fact, what happened in Nigeria was that telecoms were fined heavily for numbers that weren’t registered. Numbers that aren’t registered are committing a lot of crimes. And they are conning people every day; who are these people? And why don’t you punish the telecoms that are allowing these fraudsters to keep using these numbers?” noted Tayebwa.
“This fraudster has only been changing numbers, but he has reached out to many MPs. And he is stealing in the name of Banyankore, that he is Byarugaba,” added Tayebwa.
Chris Baryomunsi, Minister of ICT and National Guidance, concurred with the Deputy Speaker’s proposal, informing Parliament that he has held discussions with Telecoms on the said issue, and they have constantly assured him that use of unregistered SIMcards isn’t going on, even when experiences from MPs and the public show the reverse.
The same sentiments were shared by Marksons Oboth, Minister of Defense, who said other than the financial losses occasioned by fraudsters, the use of unregistered SIM cards poses a security threat in the country, while calling for the creation of liability on the side of the telecoms.
“I have actually engaged telecom companies, and they have been giving assurances that it is only registered numbers that are in circulation, whereas such experiences indicate the reverse. I am going to engage the telecom companies again because it appears that some people access unregistered numbers because for them they claim, maybe they have been using numbers of dead people, but we are going to investigate with the view of putting heavy sanctions on the telecom companies if we establish that there is still a gap where individuals can access numbers without registration,” said Baryomunsi.
“What you are raising is very critical, not just economical but also matters security, and here as government, we need to create liability on the service providers to restore sanity. There is no service provider who will allow an unregistered number to be used; they should have a penalty. Because criminals in Uganda, like in any other country, use phones. They know they can use this phone, drop and pick another one. This isn’t a small matter; people have been killed, people have been robbed, while criminals are coordinating. If there is need, we can look at the law again; this Parliament can save the situation through legislation to create liability for service providers,” remarked Oboth.
