TELECOMS BILL WILL PENALISE.......

The government bill on telecommunications which passed its first reading in the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Wednesday is not intended to open the door to illicit wire-tapping, the spokesperson for the parliamentary group of the ruling Frelimo Party, Edmundo Galiza-Matos Junior, told reporters on Thursday.The main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, had claimed that the bill might allow any official to order phones to be tapped, and for this reason voted against the bill.Speaking at a Maputo press conference, Galiza-Matos claimed that the bill went in exactly the opposite direction to that claimed by Renamo. Far from facilitating wire-taps, it increased the penalties for illicit interception of communications.The bill is an amendment of the 2004 law on telecommunications. Galiza-Matos pointed out that the clause on confidentiality of communications has been strengthened. The 2004 law states that “confidentiality is guaranteed”, but the new bill goes somewhat further, by declaring “it is obligatory to guarantee confidentiality”.The article which Renamo claimed opens the door to widespread wire-tapping, in fact increases the penalties for unauthorized wire-taps, Galiza-Matos said. If the bill is enacted into law, the penalty will be between eight and 12 years imprisonment plus a fine of up to two million meticais (about 42,500 US dollars).Wire-taps could only be authorized by “the competent authorities”. But this did not mean that any official could declare himself competent to order phones to be tapped. Galiza-Matos said that “the competent authorities” are defined in law, and that, under the current legislation, courts or the public prosecutor’s office are the bodies which can approach the regulator, the Mozambique National Communications Institute (INCM), and ask for specific phones to be tapped.