TCRA's Traffic Monitoring System earns Treasury billions

By The guardian reporter

DR ALLY SIMBA (L) AND TCRA'S TCRA COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER, INNOCENT MUNGY (R)

 A Telecommunications Traffic Monitoring System installed in 2014 has earned the country billions of shillings in revenue through payments from service providers and defaulters.

 

In a recent report, TCRA said Treasury has been earning about 1.6bn/- monthly since the TTMS commissioning in October 2013 but earning to Treasury started in January 2014.

 

Since then Treasury has been earning an average of 20bn/- per annum.

 

“The TTMS project that employs state of the art technology has multiple benefits including boosting of the government revenue, detecting and tracking illegal communication operators who had the capability of causing the dwindling down of earnings of licenced operators of the communication services,” TCRA Director General, Dr Ally Simba said in the report.

 

According to a quarterly TCRA report for September 2015, the country had over 35.7 million subscribers of which Vodacom had over 12.5 million, Airtel 10.8 million, Tigo 10.6 million and Zantel 1.5 million as of June, 2015.

 

“The TTMS project that employs state of the art technology has multiple benefits including boosting of the government revenue, detecting and tracking illegal communication operators who had the capability of causing the dwindling down of earnings of licenced operators of the communication services,” Dr Simba said in the report.

 

The equipment has enabled easy tracking and booking of fraudulent operators who were not only depriving the government of its revenue but also muddled with smooth regulatory role of the communication sector, the report stated.

 

Fraudsters’ acts also interfered with the TCRA positioning statement of ‘Creating a Level Playing Field’ as they tapped incoming international calls through illegal gateways and unlawfully pocketed the earnings, the report stated.

 

Former President Jakaya Kikwete officially launched the facility in February 2014 who commended TCRA for installing the equipment to uphold efficiency and boost government revenue.

 

A consortium of Swiss based Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) and Global Voice Group (GVG) won the tender to install the system financed under “Build Operate and Transfer.”

 

The regulatory framework that enables the TTMS project is the Electronic and Postal Communications (TTMS) Regulations of 2013.

 

In these regulations, it is spelt out that each minute of incoming international call is charged USD 25 cents, from international network operators get 13 cents, the government receives 7 cents, and the balance of 5 cents is shared by the consultant and TCRA for maintenance.