MTN calls for multi-sectorial approach to fighting MoMo, Internet fraud

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTN Ghana, Mr Selorm Adadevoh, has called for a multi-sectoral collaboration to minimise mobile money and Internet fraud in the country.

Considering that Ghana was fast transitioning into a digital economy, he said, Internet and MoMo fraud posed a larger national threat and for that reason, stakeholders must work in concert to nip the menace in the bud.

Until December last year, the CEO said, the incidence of MoMo fraud had subsided significantly.

However, fraudsters had engineered more sophisticated strategies to bypass established security systems in a new wave.

“This comes with some responsibilities for everyone. As operators, we have responsibilities, government has a responsibility, and the media has a responsibility,” he explained.

“What is important is that we all come together with a single plan we can execute to prevent the emergence of fraud.”

Mr Adadevoh made the remarks when he addressed the 2023 Central and Western Regional Media and Stakeholder Forum in Takoradi on the theme: “Leveraging Technology to Serve Customers with Excellence”.

The meeting was MTN’s 19th annual media engagement and the first after the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed at acknowledging the contributions of customers, the media and all other stakeholders.

The CEO said individual institutions had put defence mechanisms in place but stressed that more collaborations needed to happen among telecommunication companies, banks, security agencies among others.

“The way to fight fraud is not for MTN to sit in its corner doing its own thing. We all have to come together and take fraud as a national issue and fight together because the vulnerabilities are not only on MTN’s side.

“The vulnerabilities are in other places too,” he added.

Beyond the collaboration, he said, it was necessary to intensify public education for people to become more empowered to mitigate fraud.

Mr Adadevoh said that MTN was committed to building the largest and most valuable platforms and solutions for Africa’s progress.

To achieve that, he said, it was working to deliver a bold new digital world, which would leave no one behind, irrespective of their location and status.

He said that the company was transforming the network to become a digital operator, while it was partnering government on its digital transformation agenda.

Mr Adadevoh said the telecommunication network was on course with its pledge to invest one billion dollars in network expansion by end of 2025.

The company has since 2021, invested about 650 million dollars and is hoping to exceed the one-billion-dollar target by 2025.

He explained that it was creating 350 new sites to improve service delivery out of which 50 were in the Western and Central regions alone.

Touting its contributions to national development, he noted among other gestures, that MTN in 2022 contributed more than four billion dollars to government revenue.

Mr Adadevoh, however, bemoaned the incidence of fibre cuts, which he attributed largely to the unbridled galamsey activities, particularly, in the Western Region and also road constructions.

He said the situation resulted in disruptions in the network and also increased its operational cost because millions were spent to replace the fibre optic cables.

To address the challenge, he said, MTN had engaged various stakeholders, including road agencies and the police in the Western and Central regions.

“We are doing our best to stop the fibre cuts and we have provide maps of where our fibres are buried.

“Road expansions are development projects and fibre is also a development project, so we need to collaborate. Road agencies need to contact us when there is the need for construction so that we take action to protect our cables,” he added.