Last time he spoke to the press, his life turned upside down. After years of silence, Shyam Roy, ex-CEO of Emtel, speaks to us about the sniffing controversy. No friend of former Mauritius Telecom CEO Sherry Singh, his opinions, which he insists are his own and do not bind Emtel in any way, nonetheless shed a new and professional light on what is going on the sniffing allegations.

There is so much confusion about the sniffing episode that people are lost. As a former CEO of Emtel where you worked for 28 years, what is your evaluation of the situation?

First, I am amazed at the amount of time spent in parliament and outside on this matter whereas there are far bigger issues to tackle concerning the survival and future of our Mauritius!

Such as what?

Such as the militarisation of Agalega island by a foreign country under unknown conditions. On one hand, late Sir Anerood was making so many efforts at the international courts to regain possession of the Chagos Islands from the British/US, and on the other hand some people are giving away to another country the keys to Agalega! Who is getting what in return? I had the impression we were a neutral country!

 Isn’t this issue also somehow related to the sniffing saga?

I have not followed the “sniffing” matter closely but to me all this sounds like an episodic serial movie on Netflix. We are at Season 1, Episode 1! And the movie will keep on having the audience excited after every episode which has no ending and keeping it in expectation for the next episode. Don’t you find the silence of the French a bit too loud? They are 40% shareholders, are they not?

 Why are they silent in your opinion?

Maybe due to diplomatic reasons…

 You seem to be underplaying what you call a serial movie. We are talking about intrusion in countries’ and people’s lives, aren’t we? How is that just a serial movie?

The revelations are like a serial movie but the attempt to breach citizens’ privacy is despicable. 

“A lot has been said against huawei, mainly by western and european countries concerning spying through their networks but so far, no Evidence has been produced as far as I know. Huawei does not have networks in all the countries of the world.”

First, from the report of the chief technical officer of Mauritius Telecom and other documents leaked to the press, do you believe there is potentially a case of data capture?

It seems, from the information circulated, that there was only a test sample of data capture for around two minutes.

 Are you saying that two minutes are OK? Many people feel even one second is not acceptable if it’s illegal. Don’t you share that view?

I do. Besides, just for the tapping of phones, one need to have a judge’s order. In this case, we are talking about something much more serious. We need to know the reason why the data capture test was done. We also need to know why something that happened sometime in October 2021 has been disclosed only very recently. If the friendly bond had not been broken, would we ever have known about this? Also, what else happened during the seven last years that we might never know?

 Some Indian journalists got invited into the debate and presented arguments insinuating that it was China that was sniffing on other countries through Huawei, how do you react to that?

A lot has been said against Huawei, mainly by Western and European countries concerning spying through their networks but so far, no evidence has been produced as far as I know. Huawei does not have networks in all the countries of the world. Now what if a company like Microsoft, which is present in all computers in the whole world and which has automatic updates of software, wanted to spy on the whole world, would it not be easier for them to do so? In technology, everything is possible.

 Is Huawei spying on the Indians or not?

I find that some people who have been around for many years and some of the newly appointed to high positions have suddenly discovered that Huawei is bad! Even though this information about Huawei spying has been in the news for quite a few years. In the recent past, all question in parliament concerning the top official of Mauritius Telecom were not answered due to the fact that it was a ‘private company’. Now, so many government officials are commenting publicly on television, radios and in the press on Mauritius Telecom. Which is which?

 Whatever the case, shouldn’t Mauritius Telecom have had a couple of suppliers instead of one?

There are advantages and disadvantages of having one supplier. In large countries like India, France, the UK etc., it makes sense not to have just one supplier. However, in a very small country like Mauritius, where we don’t benefit from the economies of scale, it is a different story.

 What is the story at Emtel?

At Emtel, originally, we used to have multi suppliers for our network. We strategically planned to move to a onesupplier system in the longer term for key reasons. This was implemented following a strict and detailed tendering process.

“When I said in my interview that I was allergic to orange, I referred to the brand ‘orange’ that was the competitor of emtel. However, some idiots misunderstood it for the colours of a political party! Thereafter came lots of pressures that led to my departure from emtel.''

What do you mean by ‘key reasons’?

First, the bulk purchasing from one supplier allows negotiation for better pricing. One supplier for us back then also meant that engineers were trained in one type of equipment only rather than having pools of engineers trained in different supplier equipment. We also had fewer stocks of spare parts kept than in the case of multi suppliers. With multi suppliers, interconnectivity is always a hassle as when there is a fault, each supplier passes the buck! Updates of software from one supplier also meant others had to follow. It all boils down to lower costs. This worked well for Emtel.

This supplier happens to be the controversial Huawei?

Yes. 

Why did you opt for Huawei?

We conducted a very strict tendering process involving many suppliers and Huawei was the best and most compliant supplier.

“On one hand, late sir anerood was making so many efforts at the international courts to regain possession of the chagos islands from the british/us, and on the other hand some people are giving away to another country the keys to agalega! Who is getting what in return?”

 In a previous interview in another life, you stated that you were allergic to Orange. Are you still suffering from the same allergy or have you been cured?

When I said in my interview that I was allergic to Orange, I referred to the brand ‘Orange’ that was the competitor of Emtel. However, some idiots misunderstood that for the colours of a political party! Thereafter came lots of pressures that led to my departure from Emtel. It’s good to note that the same idiots caught the same allergy virus against Orange soon afterwards and the brand was replaced by the Myt brand! Hilarious!