Paradise plunged into another intrigue with the revelations after the resignation of the CEO of the main Telecom company.
This concerns a possible major breach of security at the guarded SAFE internet cable landing station.
The South Africa Far East (SAFE) cable is a 13,500 km optical fiber submarine cable linking South Africa, Mauritius, La Réunion, India and Malaysia.
SAFE is the main Paradise internet connection. It is absolutely critical for the nation’s economy, business and telecommunications in general. Thus its landing station here is a closely guarded national security post.
The CEO of the main operating Telecom company resigned over allegations of what is termed as a major breach of security of the SAFE landing station. Apparently, the PM requested the CEO to permit a team of experts from a foreign country to access the landing station and its equipment. Naturally, the CEO made a prior meeting with the head of the expert team to enquire as to the nature and needs of this exercise. The expert leader advised that it would be to ascertain what equipment would be required to connect to SAFE for monitoring of incoming and outgoing internet traffic. The CEO alarmed at the proposed technical intervention advised that this would be illegal and not possible. Thus the company had to check-back with the PM’s office for clarification. The PM had direct phone contact with the CEO, annoyed that access had not yet been granted. The CEO explained to the PM that what the foreign expert team wanted to do was illegal, in IT terms called Sniffing. However, the PM was adamant that what he later called a survey should be carried out. Thus the CEO was ordered to permit access to foreign nationals team of IT experts to visit the landing station. The team carried out survey of the equipment at the landing station as well as having access to national internet traffic in-out.
The CEO resigned after this on ethical grounds. Indeed as the incident is deemed illegal. The SAFE cable belongs to a consortium of companies and is not the sole national property. The consortium had not been consulted nor did they grant access. Access to national data traffic through monitoring by a foreign country is illegal and probably espionage. So what was the PM’s motive for such an exercise which opposition MPs are calling high treason. Could it be that the PM wanted to monitor opposition members or activists or businesses or even the general population. It does seem the kind of action that a dictator would have to maintain control and hold-on to power. It is a sinister move. We can only speculate on the intentions, however, everyone is alarmed at such a demarche.
No doubt, the incident and its veiled motivations will have repercussions in local politics, with the population’s trust in the institutions and worse with financial business, economy and embassies. We live in turbulent times.
It doesn’t seem credible such a thing can happen.
Quite an ongoing scandal here. The whistle-blower has had the PM put a complaint for defamation against him and is now being interrogated by the police over several days. More has come-out in the local press on this. It will be a long investigation and not sure of the outcome. However, it seems a disturbing enough incident for the population to be alarmed and speculating about the intentions. The country is losing credibility with business and finance sectors causing a security concern.