Vodafone and Tala executives charged

The executives of two telecommunications service providers, Vodacom and Tala, were charged with economic crimes in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The managing director of Vodacom, Hisham Hendi, and the business operations manager of Tala, Ahmed Ngassa, were charged alongside six other company staff members with causing the government the loss of TSh5.8 billion (USD$2.5 million) through fraudulent use of their networks.

They were also charged with importing, using, and installing telecommunications equipment and distributing frequency numbers without proper licenses. Vodacom has since appointed an acting chief executive officer.

Tanzania is planning a biometric registration of all SIM cards where each person will be limited to one SIM card per mobile network.