THE Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) in the Lake Zone has warned the public to be vigilant against untrustworthy mobile telephone agents who have been going around to register simcards with the biometric system.
Briefing reporters on Friday in Mwanza City, Manager of TCRA in Lake Zone Eng. Francis Mihayo said it had come to their attention that some agents had been deceiving mobile phone users that Simcard registration was simultaneously being done with verification of mobile bank accounts.
According to Eng Mihayo, the authority has received complaints from the public related to theft of money from their mobile bank accounts with clues liking the problem to the registration of their Sim cards by some crooked agents.
He stressed that the registration of Sim cards under the biometric system had nothing to do with the verification of mobile bank accounts, asking the public to avoid disclosing information on their accounts to the agents.
He said registration of Sim cards with biometric system in Tanzania began in May last year aiming to effecting convenience in mobile phone use and to enable users of the system to get recognition and to add value to mobile banking services.
Eng Mihayo added that by December 31, 2019, Tanzania had a about 48,321,94 9 sim cards users.
However, until the same date, the registered sim cards with the biometric system were only 24,021,7 57 , which is only 4 9.7 per cent.
The zone manager also said that 24 ,300,192 sim cards were not registered with the biometric system, saying this could be due to lack of National Identification Authority (NIDA) cards, owners dying before registering their sim cards or owners being negligent for other unknown reasons.
Eng Mihayo urged people in the Lake Zone who have not made registrations to use the remaining time to do so, to avoid inconveniences.
He added that to those who will not manage to register through biometric system because they don’t have fingers, a service provider will notify NIDA so that verification of their information will be done by interviews and the service provider will provide registration by biometric system.
“Recently President John Magufuli extended time for registration for 20 days to allow all people to do so, but after 20 January this year, all Sim cards which will not be registered will not operate since they will be switched off. I am urging people in the lake zone to use this opportunity properly,” said Eng Mihayo.
