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Tanzania: Make Phone Register Promise a Reality
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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
EDITORIAL
20 May 2008
Posted to the web 20 May 2008
At the climax of the International Telecommunications and Information Society week last Friday, one major announcement was made.
That, mobile phone operators, Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) and the Ministry of Home Affairs will register all phone numbers and users. They will also create a mechanism to control handset theft. Any stolen handset will be disabled, rendering it useless. This is good news in a market becoming insecure day after day.
The idea by itself isn't something new. It was actually first announced in the Parliament last year by the then Minister for Public Safety and Security, Mr Bakari Mwapachu.
Tabling his ministry's budget speech for 2007/08, Mr Mwapachu described the sector as "highly sensitive" and vital one if the war against crime was to succeed. True, given the trend then when armed robbery had become order of the day.
Registering all subscribers will definitely force people to be more accountable in taking strict care of their telephone usage.
Because, what is happening now is sim-cards have become so cheap. With a thousand shilling, one can be connected and talking. Mobile phones thus have been used to insult people, coordinate criminal activities before that sim-card is dumped. This should be brought to an end sooner than later.
However, it would appear that the Government had not done its homework very well. Technically, nothing had been done to warrant the project to take off.
For it to work, it required the country to have completed a number of enabling mechanism, like having national identity cards.
One year later, the project to issue all Tanzanians with identity cards is still far from over.
This means, putting to effect this good intention of not only improving security to businesses but also to mobile phone subscribers, will continue to be delayed for an unknown period.
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We call upon the Government to speed up the ID project, if it wants to make this promise a reality and not one of those famous statements normally issued to the public for the sake of marking big days.
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