The committee chaired by Tororo county MP Annet Nyakecho made the demand while meeting the Director Rural communication Development fund Nyombi Thembo over the public concern about the mobile money fraudster and lack of regulations guiding this business.

Tororo County Mp Annet Nyakecho

The Member of Parliament for Kigulu north MP Fred Kyakulaga said that frequently fraudsters are using mobile money technology to defraud public at the watch of the Uganda Communication Commission.

Kyakulaga said that the fraudsters are using the names of high profile government officials to con them using Sim cards known clowned cards.

While responding to MPS concerns the Director Rural Communication Development fund Nyombi Thembo said that they are aware of fraudsters in mobile money technology and the Uganda communication commission updated its technological capacity to deal with them.

He warned the public not to trust any person contacting them on phones for any transaction before verifying whether you know that him or her. He said that regulations and technology monitoring this sector need to be updated to minimize on the illegal acts associated with mobile money.

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Wim-Vanhelleputte-CEO-MTN-Uganda

MTN has revealed that it will switch off unregistered customers even before the government’s deadline of 30th August 2017.

The announcement comes as the deadline for simcard registration extended by government in April this year clocks down to only 9 days.

This was revealed by the MTN chief executive officer, Mr.Wim Vanhelleputte, while appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on ICT and National guidance chaired by the Tororo County MP, Annet Nyakecho.
The committee was on Monday meeting with officials from telecommunications companies of MTN, Afritel, K2 and Airtel to assess their progress on the verification and registration of Simcards in the country.

Mr.Vanhelleputte said that MTN will close the simcard registration on 26th August to have enough time to sort out unregistered subscribers warning customers to be compliant of the 30th August 2017 deadline to avoid switching off those fully verified.

He told the committee that about 700,000 MTN clients are at risk of being disconnected starting 26th this month to heed to the UCC guideline that no unregistered simcards should be on air by 30th midnight or else the companies’ are at risk.

However, MPs who included; Kampala Central’s Muhammad Nsereko, Gideon Onyango of Samia Bugwe, Kato Lubwama of Lubaga South among others questioned where MTN gets the mandate to act contrary to government’s deadline before describing the attempt as illegal.

The K2 Telcom’s Corporate and Communication Affairs Manager, Livingstone Kiataka, said that government should consider giving more time for simcard registration and verification because there are still a group of people who have not registered their simcards.

The Member of Parliament for Rubaga South, Paul Kato Lubwama, said that government should consider legalising the sale of Simcards by vendors as a way of creating jobs for youths.

MTN’s CMO Mapula Bodibe personally verifies registered customers in Luwero Kasana after the launch of ReadyPay

MPs noted that the current system used for registration is ineffective in ensuring public security.
They say that it is not easy to trace a crime due to the lack of an application programming interface (API) which would be a go between the operators and the National Identification and Registration Authority by placing a photo on the data provided by the person registering.

According to data given by the telecom companies, 26% of Airtel clients and 7% of MTN risk being disconnected if no more time frame is accorded for the simcard registration exercise as pleaded by the service providers while in the committee.

It is estimated that about 100 billion shillings will be lost by MTN if those numbers are switched off.

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