Vodacom has cut the South African Police Service (SAPS) off from services such as locating and intercepting calls on its network, City Press reports.

According to the report, the letter was dated 31 January and stated that Vodacom plans to hand the account over to a debt collection agency.

Vodacom also reportedly said that the crime intelligence unit had until 7 February to settle the bill or face additional charges. It is unclear if this deadline was met.

MyBroadband asked Vodacom for comment, and it confirmed that it has temporarily suspended “certain services” to SAPS.

Vodacom added that it is contractually precluded from offering any further information.

“It is important to note that this does not impact instances where Vodacom is served with a Section 205 Subpoena from the court,” said Vodacom.

“Naturally, Vodacom remains committed to acting accordingly and will abide by applicable South African laws, including the implementation of directives issued by a designated judge in accordance with RICA requirements.”

Under RICA, mobile networks are obliged to offer legal intercept capabilities to law enforcement agencies so long as a designated judge signs it off.

Citing inside sources, City Press reported that the lack of payment had begun in November and is not limited to Vodacom.

The report stated that Vodacom’s decision to stop cooperating until payment is made leaves hardware designed to intercept and monitor criminal activities redundant.

However, it was previously reported that many of these devices couldn’t legally be used anyway because police minister Bheki Cele failed to obtain RICA exemption certificates.

The exemption application has been dragging on since 2019, and, as a result, equipment worth R102 million may not legally be used.

However, according to the report, “rogue operatives” were using them unlawfully.

The acting head of crime intelligence introduced measures to curb this abuse.

In July last year, justice minister Ronald Lamola explained that Cele needed to obtain sign-off from three different ministries: Defence, State Security, and Communications.

Lamola said progress was being made to acquire the certificate of exemption.

Minister of Police Bheki Cele

Tension between SAPS and Vodacom

This decision by Vodacom exacerbates recent tension between the mobile network provider and SAPS.

Rapport reported in January 2023 that Vodacom is suing SAPS for moving its cellular contract tender to MTN.

Vodacom had been the sole cellular services provider of SAPS for the past two decades — but MTN will now receive about R20 million per month for the provision of phones, modems, and uncapped data to law enforcement.

Vodacom argues that during the bidding process, SAPS misunderstood how network operators report population coverage and network availability during load-shedding.

It said that while it had disclosed that its network availability outside of load-shedding was 99.9% as of June 2021, MTN provided a network coverage figure of 99.1%.

Vodacom also disclosed to SAPS that during load-shedding, Vodacom’s network availability had, at one point, declined to 86%.

MTN allegedly did not provide comparable statistics — simply saying it was impacted by power cuts.

Vodacom believes that SAPS incorrectly interpreted Vodacom’s coverage to permanently have fallen to 86%, while MTN’s network coverage had remained at 99.1%.

MTN contends that Vodacom’s claim of 99.9% network coverage is unsubstantiated by any third parties. SAPS said that Vodacom had provided a network availability figure instead of the network coverage figure that was requested.

Vodacom blocks police spying services over R3 million bill (mybroadband.co.za)