Mobile phone registration plan on hold

Implementation of plans to have mobile phone subscribers register their SIM cards registered may not start any time soon because it involves a sophisticated process calling for the formulation of a complicated enabling mechanism, experts say.

By Musita John

Implementation of plans to have mobile phone subscribers register their SIM cards registered may not start any time soon because it involves a sophisticated process calling for the formulation of a complicated enabling mechanism, experts say.

Talking exclusively to The Guardian yesterday, a senior official with the Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority who requested for anonymity said the idea appeared wonderful and welcome but there was an immense task to be done before it is implemented.

He said TCRA had been holding discussions with mobile phone service providers `in an attempt to make sure that the plan benefits both users and the large public and does not become just another nuisance`.

One of the major problems on the way towards implementing the idea lay in the identification of cellular phone users because Tanzanians have no national identity cards, he pointed out.

`As you can see, Tanzanians are yet to be issued with identity cards the way things are in many other countries. Before you can introduce this kind of programme, you need your customers to have proper identification,` added the TCRA official.

He explained there could also be problems in connection with accessing new software that must be compatible with the ones now in wide use in the country.

But he noted: `Acquiring the software in itself should not be a big deal once we have the wherewithal because currently telecommunication providers have their own systems in operation. However, we must be careful enough to ensure compatibility.`

The official said the long delay he was foreseeing was explained by the fact that the whole process requires time-consuming preparations and a sound financial base.

He added that if the government can make the funds needed for the work readily available, the process can be made operational without any major hitch.

`For our part as TCRA, we are merely regulators and work according to people�s recommendations and government directives. Whenever the government feels that it has played its full part on the issue, we shall happily take it up from there and do our most in implementing whatever we are supposed to implement,`he noted further.

Asked whether he believed there was any adverse side to the plans, he said disadvantages could not be ruled out, including the fact that people living in remote areas would not benefit much `as many do not own cellular phones and have not been connected to any form of electricity supply`.

But he observed that the system would help make people more accountable in taking strict care of their telephone connection details, lest they fall prey to criminal elements and are wrongly incriminated by law-enforcing agents.

The idea of having mobile phone users register their numbers was first mooted by Public Safety and Security minister Harith Bakari Mwapachu when he was tabling his ministry`s 2007/08 budget estimates in the National Assembly in Dodoma recently.

Mwapachu said the telecommunication sector was a highly sensitive one and called for special attention for the war against crime to succeed, adding that implementation of the registration plans would be done by his ministry soon in collaboration with TCRA and mobile phone service providers.

According to the minister, TCRA would from this financial year establish a registration data bank for all mobile phone subscribers `as a way of fighting crime in the country`.

This development comes in the wake of a marked rise in the number of cases of violent crime in different parts of the country.

Mid-last month armed robbers killed a policeman and robbed over 240m/- from the Mwanga branch of the National Microfinance Bank in Kilimanjaro Region.

The national chairman of the opposition Tanzania Labour Party, Augustine Mrema, has meanwhile said the plan to register mobile phone users shows `obvious failure by the government to devise a water-tight mechanism to curb criminality`.

`It is absurd to force mobile phone subscribers to register their numbers because that would impede the free flow of news, information and ideas in the country,` he pointed out, when contacted for comment.

Source: Guardian