The situation was denounced by the director general of TV Cabo Angola, Francisco Ferreira, during a seminar on "Fighting Piracy. Understanding the Global and Local Context", promoted by the television distribution company Multichoice.
Francisco Ferreira said that close to 130 complaints have already been submitted to the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) in the last three years.
"We have an average, in the last three years, every 15 days, equipment is always stolen from us. Each piece of equipment that is stolen from us is worth between 1,500 dollars and 2,000 dollars", said the director, stressing that the equipment has to be imported, as it is not are manufactured locally.
Francisco Ferreira stressed that in an operation carried out in October last year by SIC, to dismantle illegal channels distribution houses, a series of equipment was recovered, but due to some difficulties it has not yet been delivered to the company.
"This aspect is extremely serious, because it is equipment that is stolen and doesn't exist here, they force us to spend foreign currency, to be replaced and there is still another problem that is the issue of image, because each piece of equipment involves about 400 to 500 users, customers", he said.
According to the director general of TV Cabo, when these equipments are stolen, customers can stay between four and six hours without the service, "when it's not at night".
"When it is at 10, 11 o'clock at night, it is only the next day, in the morning, that the service is replaced, they are without service. It is evident that they do not know that the equipment was stolen, what they do know is that the TV Cabo stopped working", he pointed out.
The director general of TV Cabo said that these elements are identified, but the feeling of impunity is great.
"We have images, at this moment their impudence is total, they steal during the day, at night, in places where they have cameras, where they are filmed, there is no problem, they both steal at eight in the morning and at nine at night, the impunity is total, they know that, nothing happens to them", he lamented.
"We make a complaint, present evidence, car registrations and everything and everything remains the same. We know where the equipment is, on the poles of Ende, Angolatelecom, placed. They have their own technicians who go up and go there to fix and install equipment, have 'door to door' services, they are on the street selling the service, completely unpunished, without problems", he added.
On the other hand, the company is also affected by the decrease in the number of customers, who start using the pirated services provided.
The head of the Cyber Crimes department of the Criminal Investigation Service, Francisco Policarpo, reported that, in 2021, the SIC directorate-general registered around 550 reports of computer crimes and in Luanda received 540 criminal reports, making a total that exceeded more than a thousand complaints.
According to Francisco Policarpo, in the operation carried out in October last year by SIC, four points of illegal distribution of television channels were closed.
"Currently, SIC has closed about four illegal pay-TV signal distribution centers. There were four points that SIC fined last year, in October, and we still have some points that we will dismantle over time", stressed.
In turn, the general director of Multichoice, Glauco Ferreira, said that the pay TV business in Angola has one of the biggest penetrations in Africa, in terms of the number of users, because prices in dollars are the lowest in Africa.
"This makes the competition, with three 'players' in the market, reach this in a very high way, since the Internet is still a focus of government growth, but the Internet still has a lower penetration compared to other countries in Africa ", he emphasized.
Glauco Ferreira stressed that despite the excellent penetration of pay-TV, studies show that around 6 percent of the market comes from community television, which had an impact on operators' service, with the loss of 280,000 customers last year.
The official praised SIC's initiative last year, which he would like to see repeated, "because it really showed that this can generate arrest".
"My suggestion is to look for best practices, an example from Kenya is the identification of those 'sites' that transmit illegally and the Government blocks the IP of that specific 'site', a smarter way of doing it instead of going to 3000 product sales points, which is frustrating", he proposed.
The director of Multichoice Angola's Legal and Regulation department, Nair Pitra, said that since 2020, with the approval of the Penal Code, Angola has had specific legislation to typify this type of crime and penalize these actions.
The penal framework ranges from two years in prison and a fine of up to 240 days, for anyone who, without authorization, accesses all or part of an information system that they do not own.
Nair Pitra also pointed out that, in Angola, pay-TV companies have been confronted with the distribution and misuse of their channels all over the country, with the interception of the signal and content paid for very high values, which are transmitted illegally to a value below the actual.
