It has been revealed that NATCOM, the country’s telecoms regulator, did not have the mechanism to monitor the international gateways maintained by the mobile operators in the country. As such Sierra Leone is at a high risk of sim box fraud largely due to lack of effective preventive and directive systems.
Apart from the above it was also discovered that this has a direct impact on the potential revenue due government in relation to international gateway charges, while also rendering the fraud management system used in sim box fraud detection largely nonexistent as at the time of the audit exercise.
This is, according to a Technical Audit Report, conducted on the Telecommunications sector in the country as recommended by the GTT Report of July, 2018.
The Audit Report noted that, in October 2016, NATCOM appointed Subah Infosolution to build, operate and transfer an international gateway monitoring systems. Review of documents and physical verification, according to the report, however revealed that NATCOM entered into contract with Subah Infosolution of the Republic of Mauritius, whereas the tender bid had been submitted by Subah Infosolution, Ghana.
The exercise discovered that these two firms are registered in different countries. NATCOM had not provided evidence to the audit team to show that these were a group of companies. It was also observed by the audit exercise that NATCOM entered into a contract with a company that did not make a tender bid for the services.
The exercise has also discovered that, in August 2017, an addendum to the initial contract was signed between NATCOM and Subah Infosolution of the Republic of Mauritius. That contract has provided for additional services namely: monitoring of the quality of service provided by the operators monitoring mobile money transactions.
As at the time of the audit in December 2018, Subah Infosolution had not provided these additional services to NATCOM, the report went on. The Report exposed the fact that, upon physical verification done on 6th December, 2018, Sierra Leone’s international gateway monitoring system was not operational and that Subah Infosolution had not implemented redundant links as required.
In view of this the Technical Audit Report has recommended that: NATCOM reviews the contract with Subah Infosolution and seek legal advice with a view to terminate the contract due to non-performance under section 19 of the contract agreement with Subah Infosolution on the part of the vendor.
NATCOM was also tasked, as part of the Technical Audit recommendations, to recover US$150,000 that was paid to a Mr. Kallil Jalloh, who was not a party to the contract with Subah Infosolution as far as the available information is concerned.
In responding to the draft management letter, the management at NATCOM noted that it will present these findings on Subah Infosolution to the Board with a view of obtaining legal advice from the Office of the Attorney General, who will terminate the contract due to non-performance. In addition, the management intends to engage Subah Infosolution in an effort to recover the US$150,000 paid to Kallil Jalloh.
It could be recalled that the current management at NATCOM had in November,2018 busted into a huge simbox fraud in the country, involving Chinese and Sierra Leonean nationals. In a press statement quite recently in Freetown the Director General, Maxwell Hinga Massaquoi, has told newsmen that the regulator has done everything in their power to regulate the sector and prevent further sim box fraud occurrences. But how will this be possible when the very mechanisms for monitoring the international gateways used by these mobile networks remained unmonitored?
Sierra Leone continues to lose huge monies as a result of this anomaly.