At least US $ 61 million is not reported each month by the cellular companies in the DRC, causing a monthly escape of over 17.6 million from the public treasury.
This fraud was detected by the company Télécom, a French firm represented in the DRC by Company Business Consulting, with which the Congolese government signed a contract to fight telephone fraud, says a report by Radio Okapi.
The shortfall detected by the French firm only concerns calls and SMS. The Internet and electronic money transfer are not taken into account in this fraud which, according to Business Company Consulting, involves three companies: Vodacom, Airtel and Africell.
Since the Congolese tax system is declarative, each company is required to declare the volume of its transactions itself. However, the control performed by Business Company Consulting reveals that the minutes and SMS volumes often reported by these cell phone companies do not match the actual data but are rather reduced.
Business Company Consulting, which had since January, besides the control of international calls, the mission to also check the domestic calls with retroactivity on the year 2016, worked first on two months. Thus, for Vodacom (July and August) and Airtel (August and September), these two companies did not each declare at least $ 55 million, resulting in a loss of more than $ 32 million from the Treasury.
Even Africell, who hid more than 10 million dollars, thus depriving the public treasury of its 3.2 million USD. All in all, the Congolese state lost at least 35 million dollars, only in two months.
According to the revelations of Business Company Consulting, fraud is much greater on domestic calls, which account for 90% of telecommunications operators’ traffic.