Sechaba ka’Nkosi
Ever wondered how much your better half spends on the phone? Or why you are only told and not shown the bill at the end of each month? Easy. Try the telecommunications company’s newest innovation, Telkom online.
By dialing 10210 and following a few easy instructions, you can access even your biggest foe’s current and previous statement’s balance, the last two recorded statements and the due dates.
Or at least you could until Telkom, after being approached for comment on the loophole this week, modified what it terms its “self-help facility”.
The Mail & Guardian has managed to access the phone account details of many prominent institutions. For example, at the end of last month the Reserve Bank paid R177?896,45. By Monday Telkom expects the bank to pay R200?781,95 for November. Top-secret stuff.
The South African Police Service and its elite unit, the Scorpions, have managed to keep their account details to themselves. But the South African Secret Service has not. It ran up R9?604,79 expected at the end of the month.
Telkom’s system caused a storm in other companies and individuals approached for comment this week. They have accused the telecommunications company of compromising the right to privacy.
An angry Vodacom representative, Joan Joffe, said: “As a Telkom customer, one expects that information regarding one’s account information is confidential. If a third party were able to access this information without authority, this would be a serious breach of confidentiality and would need to be investigated urgently by Telkom.”
According to Telkom, Vodacom is supposed to pay R345?434,29 by November 30. Last month its bill stood at R319?451,32. Vodacom’s rival, MTN, owes R445?758,99.
Telkom, meanwhile, refused to disclose its monthly average bill. A company representative, Ed Tillet, initially confirmed the new system may ride roughshod over clients’ rights to confidentiality. But he later blamed software modifications designed to enhance interactive voice responses on the system for transferring information to the accounts database.
“These unclassified customer segments represent less than 5% of Telkom’s customer base,” said Tillet.
“Under normal conditions, the system only supplies account balances and due payment dates on single-line residential and small business customers.”
Tillet promised that the system, which has been running for three years, would be corrected overnight. Which it was.
Most government ministries and departments investigated were not disclosed on the service. Most of them either recorded zero or the service advised that their statements’ balances were not available.
But political parties other than the African National Congress and Inkatha Freedom Party partner were easily accessible on the service. The Democratic Party for example, owed R9?936, 02. The Pan Africanist Congress’s balance was R15?394,10 as at the end of the month, while Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement owes R15?777,56. Ironically, government structures’ information was easy to access.
The South African Human Rights Commission commissioner for civil and political rights, Jody Kollapen, also called for the review of the service. Kollapen argued that, left unchecked as it stands at the moment, the system is open to abuse. He insisted that the system would have been better used through account rather than telephone numbers since these were known mainly by their owners.
“At the level of privacy, my relation with the service provider is a very private relation,” contended Kollapen. “And to that extent it cannot be a public matter. I also do not see what social purpose this service serve to the broader public.”
Conglomerates such as Anglo American Corporation had a credit balance of nearly R280?000 on their accounts. But their partners in New African Investments Limited, which is headed by Telkom chair Dikgang Moseneke, owed the company R47?277,06 last month. By November 15, they only had to pay R24?393,57.
John Gogotya, the former apartheid intelligence spy-turned African National Congress member, owes Telkom a modest R241,35, which he is supposed to pay before the end of the month. Although the Congress of South African Trade Unions telephone account was not available on the system, we were able to trace its boss, Zwelinzima Vavi, to a humble R77,36, while its big-spending affiliate, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, pitched at R59?193,68.
Other interesting findings were the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at R61?781,06; the National Youth Commission at R59?409, 90; the Commission for Gender Equality at R19?463,32 and the National Economic Development and Labour Council at R15?965, 04.
And just in case you were wondering, the M&G was supposed to have paid Telkom R36?105 last week.