A member of parliament in
Swaziland / eSwatini has accused mobile phone company MTN of listening in on
customers.
It is not the first time
the company has been accused of doing this.
Robert Magongo, the Motshane
MP, told the House of Assembly MTN staffers listened on to their conversations.
He said there was no privacy. He called on the Minister of Information,
Communication and Technology Princess Sikhanyiso, to take ‘serious action’ on
the matter.
The Times of Swaziland reported, ‘He said
he would be forced to move a motion calling for the closure of MTN if they
continued with this behaviour.’ MTN is one of only two mobile phone operators
in the kingdom.
The minister is expected to
respond within a week. Princess Sikhanyiso was appointed to the job by her
father who rules Swaziland as the last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa.
In June 2017 some senior
politicians in Swaziland said they feared their phones were being tapped. The Sunday Observer reported at the time,
‘House of Assembly Speaker Themba Msibi, when interviewed about the possibility
of hearing devices and phones being tapped, said, “I too have concerns as at
times calls sound hollow, making one suspect that a third party could be
listening in.”’
Minister of Economic
Planning Prince Hlangusemphi said he had heard rumours with nothing official
and concrete to substantiate them.
The newspaper reported,
‘Minister of Natural Resources Jabulile Mashwama said rumours of bugging have
been around since time immemorial.’
In July 2013 the Times
of Swaziland newspaper reported the
Lobamba MP Majahodvwa Khumalo said his cellphone had been bugged ever since he
started being ‘vocal against some people’.
It is legal in certain
circumstances to tap phones in Swaziland. The Suppression
of Terrorism Act gives police the right to listen in on people’s
conversations if they have the permission of the Attorney General.
When the Act came into law
in 2008 Attorney
General Majahenkhaba Dlamini said that anyone who criticised the government
could be considered a terrorist sympathiser.
In 2011, a journalist
working in Swaziland for the AFP international news agency reported on her
blog that her phone calls were being listened in to.
In August 2011 Wikileaks
published a cable from the US Embassy in Swaziland that revealed
the Swazi Government had tried to get MTN, then the only mobile phone provider
in the kingdom, to use its network for ‘surveillance on political
dissidents’.
Tebogo Mogapi, the MTN
chief executive officer (CEO) in Swaziland, refused to comply and later did not
have his work permit renewed and so had to leave the kingdom, the cable said.
See also
‘Observer’
hides king’s MTN links
PM
share dividends under scrutiny
MTN
‘keeps Swazi King in its pocket’
Swazi
election – sponsored by MTN
US decries King on MTN deal
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