By Rennie Tembo

Lilongwe, March 20, Mana: Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has underscored the need for consumers to have a right to be informed of the terms and conditions of accessing and using ICT services in the country.

MACRA’s Director of Legal Services Thokozani Chimbe made the remarks Tuesday in Lilongwe during the commemoration of World Consumers Rights Day.

“Every consumer has a right to be informed, to choose, safety and a right to be heard; these are the four fundamental consumer rights,” she said.

Chimbe then said as one way of promoting rights of the ICT consumers, MACRA is reviewing the electronic transaction in the electronic cyber security Act in order to enhance protection of consumers from cyber offences.

She further said MACRA is in the process of procuring a system called Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR), which will assist the institution in combating mobile fraud.

“We are also enhancing our monitoring system by procuring the state of the art equipment that will assist us monitoring consumer protection, such as broadcasting content monitoring equipment,” she said.

Chimbe then disclosed that MACRA is aware that many of the mobile crimes are perpetrated in prisons where many prisoners have up to 60 to over 100 sim cards that are smuggled into prisons and are used to perpetrate fraud.

However, Chimbe assured people in the country that with the CEIR machine, they are now able to trace and blacklist any phone number that is being used for fraud.

Airtel Malawi Director of Customer Experience, Sibusiso Nyasulu, confirmed that there is a lot of concern on the growing numbers of fraudsters using their network to commit crimes, adding they are working on strategies to end the vice.

“What we are doing now is that we are sending constant messages through radios and social media to inform our valued customers to avoid sharing their pin numbers with anyone.

“We have also made measures to ensure that things like sim swap are really within the control of the customer, whereby someone will not just go and do a sim swap of a card, and get full information,” she said.

World Consumer Rights Day is commemorated every year on March 15 to raise global awareness of consumer rights, promote consumer protection and empowering consumers.

This year, MACRA commemorated the day under the theme: “Fair and reasonable disclosure of terms and conditions to ICT services consumers”.