A BILL that will check kidnapping, armed robbery and other social crimes is now before the Enugu State House of Assembly.

It is aimed at mandating the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications operators to release prompt and vital information to the security agencies within a stipulated time to help them track criminals who use GSM to commit crimes.

The bill stated that failure to provide such information within a stipulated time could attract penalties ranging from N1 million to N3 million.

Deliberating on the bill titled “The Release of Core Information by Wireless Telecoms Carriers to Law Enforcement Agencies” on the floor of the House yesterday, members of the House were unanimous on the importance of the bill, which if passed into law could curb crimes being perpetrated through GSM phones.

Leader of the House and member representing Awgu North State constituency, Sunday Udeokoye, who presented the bill before the House said that, “criminals use telecommunication to commit crimes such as kidnapping and armed robbery. It is a known fact that armed robbers use cell phone to communicate who they want to rob.”

In her contribution, member representing Nsukka West Constituency, Dame Nkechi, regretted that the introduction of GSM was meant to be a blessing, but criminals had turned it into a curse and recounted how in 2007 she received a threat on phone, which she reported to the appropriate authorities to no avail. She therefore urged her colleagues to make haste and pass the bill into law.

The members who deliberated extensively on the importance of the GSM operators releasing prompt information to security agencies to track down criminals who use GSM for their nefarious activities pointed out various crimes people perpetrate by using the GSM such as kidnapping, armed robbery and even assassination and stated that the bill when passed into law would go a long way in checking the crimes if not rooting them out entirely.

The bill proposed a penalty of N1 million for any GSM operator who fails to supply the needed information within one hour and N250,000 if such negligence continues to occur.

Most House members who contributed to the debate said the fine of N1 million was small for such a grievous crime and suggested that it should be increased to either N3 or N4 million.

On the importance of the bill, Speaker of the House, Mr. Eugene Odo, pointed out that although the bill would help curb crime, it had to be handled in a way that it would not run contrary to laws establishing GSM operation in the country but to help security agencies in trying to curb GSM crimes.

He suggested that the bill should be handled by committees of the House such as Information and Judiciary and called for memoranda to be submitted to the relevant committees to enable the House enact the law.

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