The Zambia Police Service has unearthed a scam in which unscrupulous individuals masquerading as ministers or senior government officials are swindling people out of money in form of talk-time.
Inspector General of Police Francis Kabonde says the suspected conmen and women have been targeting business persons and corporate companies. Mr. Kabonde says the suspects convince unsuspecting business persons and corporate firms to send them talk time on the pretext that they have no access to it.
Mr. Kabonde has disclosed that companies have parted away with huge sums of money in form of talk time.
He has since appealed to the mobile service providers and members of the public to assist the police trace the suspects.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kabonde has warned of stern action against any law breaker during the Milanzi and Mfumbwe constituency parliamentary by-elections set for April 29th 2010. He says police are making arrangements to enforce the security system in both constituencies.
He has urged all political parties participating in the two parliamentary by-elections to campaign peacefully.
[MUVI TV]
Is it just me or this story has not explained anything… What do they mean convince unsuspecting business persons and corporate firms to send them talk time on the pretext that they have no access to it?
I am not getting any sense in Kabonde’s explanation. He seems to have raw data, in any case if you have not fully concluded the investigations, why go first to the press.
A lot of words which can be summerised with just three words-Talk time and Kabonde. Buffling!:o
Why did someone even bother copying and pasting this story which is not making sense at all?
I cannot get the sense of this piece of news!! Somebody help!!!
Bwana IG,
Please tell us what we would like to know, the story is not conclusive. I hope it is not implying that ministers/senior govt official have a habit of getting talk time from people using their positions.
what it is, is that some unknown people prenting to be ministers and government officials are phoning business organisations in pretence that they are very far, where they cant access mobile talk time and asking that talk time be bought for them, they would even mention that they belong to this and that ministry, but when you phone the same ministry you will be told that we dont know the person. They are prentending to be ministers and deputy ministers. It once happend with my organisation late last year. So be careful if one phones and pretends to be a government official asking for talk time, you will be swindled.
why does it seem to be okay for anyone to do this as long as they are govt officers? i tthink it is outright wrong minister or not
I think what the IG meant to say was that the police haven’t made any serious criminal arrests or headway in reducing crime in Zambia so talking about stealing talk-time can put the ZP in good light. I blame the ineptitude of our Zambian journalists for this – they should have grilled Kabonde and asked him whether it was ‘me 2 u’ or what? These are facts that make for an informative, if not hilarious bit of news.
#6. If that is what this story means then everything is wrong. Why would you go ahead and buy calling credit just like that for even Barack Obama?
Flaws in Africa governments I think. It can only happen in Africa. When I left Zambia, and I hope things have changed, a cheque would be issued because the boss has said so to his driver.
Number 6 , why would someone phone your organisation if he didn’t have talk time.Secondly why would a GRZ official call a private organisation to finance GRZ related expenditure (I though they do that through tax)….If someone were to swindle me like this , I’d keep quiet coz its embarrasing to be conned by such an amateur trick .
The whole system needs a major overhaul. Too many loopholes for criminals.
# 9 why ask # 6 all those questions?
aaah kabonde was spared the chop by RB now he want to divert our attention by coming up with grandious drama. Can talk time which the ministers or who ever is asking worth national news. If One Minister has a request for talk time from his concubine in Matero, is that theft or extortion??. Is this worth national news prominence????? Aaah Kabonde is wasting peoples time and energy, fire the i.d.i.o.t he should spend more energy removing 8 officers manning roadblocks (RTSA) along kafue lusaka road and deploy them to do foot patrols in crime areas. Atase, I support ba Sata in questioning why Rupiah never fired this man.
#12 DCM. Read before you post.:d He said it once happened with his organisation. Dah!
I have lived in places where this happens. In Liberia for instance, some people would often call you (if you represent a reputable institution e.g. NGO or if you are a business person). They would claim they are Senators or House of representatives, they have followed your programmes and think you are doing a great job. That would be followed by, ‘unfortunately, I need to communicate with some of my colleagues about this (or something related to the topic) but I don’t have credit.’ If you are not careful, you would end up buying credit for them. Surprisingly, they will keep calling even when you refuse —Lord knows where they get the credit to keep bugging. I would not be surprised if this happened in Zambia, but you had to be a stranger not to know that it is a scam.
You can only be a foolish ***** to be conned in this fashion.This means that we have some organisations that have idots for leaders for one to even sanction the purchase of this tt for such fake cons.Its very unfortunate to even talk about such cheap issues by the entire chief cop.
My conclusion is that our ministers are a very base calbre and as such any kaponya can masquarade them and get away with it.
Ba LT, you can do better than this! Get real.
Story in Post makes more sense
This is very real, i remember one businessman of asian descent was told to even report to the Ministry by an alledged Deputy Minister. When the pour soul reported, he was told that the Minister in question was actually out of the country.
Yes it is real, some guys have even managed to hook some chicks by pretending to be big bwanas.
Boring. There are more important issues to report to the nation such as how Kabonde and former IG purchased Presidential motorcade at such highly inflated prices. Be serious ba kapokola naimwe. I would have thought Kabonde should have been suspended at least to pave way for investigations. Double standards in Zambia are killing the progress we yearn for.
Instead of focussing on more serious matters such as political violence, this I d i o t of an IG spends time and gets his salary talking about cell phone air time!! What a country!! These are the people that your president should be dismissing instead of the professionals at the army, airfoce and ZNS. But, no, he’d rather have his “men” at ZP and Zambia Intelligence Service!! Good luck to you.
We seem to be getting some where. The investigation should not stop at the Lubuto West man. It appears it has been going on in high places and that the Lubuto man just picked it from there. It should be stopped. Today its talk time tomorrow it will be something big.