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Simcard, generic number registration to prevent crime—Macra

Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) has said the mandatory registration of sim cards and generic numbers will help prevent crime and fraudulent cases encountered in the absence of the provision.

Macra communications manager Clara Mwafulirwa, in an interview yesterday, said the development will enable security enforcement agencies to trace perpetrators using information provided to operators through sim card registration.

“We have received some complaints from people who have been victimised and we know there are some victims who do not report.

“As Macra, we can now do this exercise because of the revised Communications Act. The previous Act did not stipulate the need to register sim cards and numbers. In essence, the new Act is giving us power to carry out the exercise,” she said.

Consumers Association of Malawi (Cama) executive director John Kapito yesterday welcomed the development, saying it is about time consumers were protected from victimisation on the phone.

He said the development complements Electronic Transactions law, which is an important tool to govern phone users.

“There are people who get pride in embarrassing and offending people, but also to paint other people’s image bad for no apparent reason. So, we are hopeful that this provision counters this,” he said.

According to Macra, new subscribers are advised to register upon acquisition of their numbers with their service providers authorised to provide or sell generic numbers or sim cards.

To have sim card registered, individual subscribers are required to provide full name, gender, date of birth, residential or business address and an identity card number.

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One Comment

  1. Sim card registration its a welcome develpoment and long overdue.However we are good at policy development but implementation and policing is a challenge.Even if implementation is done in case of punishment we are selective. If our institutions really do their work without interference cashgate could have been stopped in the early stages.

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