South Africa's consumer protection regulator has moved to impose criminal penalties — including prison time — on serial spam callers, while Ghana awarded 5G network licences to MTN Ghana and Telecel Ghana and introduced centralized review of all government AI purchases. In banking, new data from the South African Reserve Bank show consumers are shifting cash withdrawals from ATMs to supermarket tills.

South Africa proposes up to one year in jail for serial spam callers

Spam calling has long been a tricky cold outreach tactic: handled well, it can win a business its next customer; handled poorly, it turns a stranger into an enemy. The South African government now wants to make unsolicited calls far riskier for the businesses behind them.

Under new draft guidelines from the National Consumer Commission (NCC), the country's consumer protection watchdog, repeat or serious violations could lead to criminal prosecution, with offenders facing fines or up to 12 months in prison.

South Africans have long dealt with spam calls from random numbers that interrupt their day, often with a salesperson on the other end. A 2019 report found that South Africans received about 25 spam calls monthly, among the highest volumes in Africa. The government had already attempted to tackle the problem: the Consumer Protection Act provided for an exclusion register as far back as 2011, while the country's data protection law later introduced rules restricting unsolicited electronic marketing.

The problem has since intensified. Truecaller, a call identity platform, said South Africans recorded 17.47 billion spam calls in the first half of 2026.

A year in prison for a spam call may sound excessive until the design of the rule is considered. Most anti-spam systems place the work on the consumer: block the number, report it, register on a do-not-call list, download an app — then do it all again when another number appears. South Africa's proposal shifts part of that burden to the businesses making the calls. Before sending out a marketing campaign, they would have to check their lists against the country's opt-out registry — which businesses must register to use — and remove consumers who have opted out of receiving those calls. The registry would charge R0.12 ($0.0072) per name check and return a cleaned list that remains valid for 30 days.

South Africa has had rules against unwanted marketing for years, backed by fines, but little has changed: businesses were willing to pay fines when the commercial gains outweighed the risks. A jail term is a more serious threat, though the guidelines remain in draft form, and it remains to be seen how often the government will actually enforce them and whether marketers comply.

Ghana awards 5G licences to MTN Ghana and Telecel

October 2, Ghana awarded 5G spectrum and licences to MTN Ghana, the country's largest telecom firm, and Telecel Ghana, the other major network operator, allowing both companies to build and operate their own 5G networks, according to Bloomberg.

The decision reverses course on a 2024 plan that framed 5G as a shared infrastructure project: one state-backed company would build and run the network, while private telecom operators rented it and offered the service to customers. Two years in, the rollout was falling below expectations. Ghana wanted to build 4,400 sites to reach 37 million customers by 2028, but as of March 2026 only 49 5G sites existed — about 43 in Greater Accra — leaving most Ghanaian telecom users without a 5G network to use. The government therefore dropped the exclusivity and changed course.

Under the original plan, a state-backed company called Next-Gen InfraCo (NGIC) would build the single network and lease capacity to operators, avoiding duplicated infrastructure while extending 5G to more people. The Ghanaian government backed NGIC, with Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries involved through Radisys, which was selected to provide the network infrastructure. Ghana's 1,200-site target for 2027 was at risk due to slow progress, and the country has now conceded to private operators building and running their own 5G networks.

Telecel plans to launch its service in December on its own network — an early measure of whether private operators can move faster than the shared model they are replacing. MTN Ghana secured spectrum in different bands, paying about $100 million for each 15-year licence. For customers, having two major operators build their own 5G networks could mean more 5G coverage, more network capacity, and less dependence on a single infrastructure provider. It could also give MTN and Telecel more control over how quickly they expand capacity in areas where customers use more data.

The move could leave Ghana with two major 5G networks while giving private operators more control over the rollout — the outcome the government's original model was meant to prevent, since it was designed to keep telecom infrastructure under Ghanaian control. It is not yet clear whether giving MTN and Telecel their own networks will produce faster coverage, but both operators already have larger infrastructure footprints and investment plans. NGIC's existing 5G sites are not being scrapped; the company keeps its licence and spectrum rights, though it no longer has exclusive control of wholesale 5G infrastructure.

Ghana will centrally review all government AI purchases

Ghana will no longer allow government agencies to buy AI tools as they please. Every AI system the public sector acquires will now be centrally reviewed, with checks on what happens to government data, whether different systems can work together, and whether Ghanaian workers can eventually operate the technology without depending permanently on its supplier.

Government technology contracts can last years. Once an agency builds its operations and data around one company's software, switching providers can become expensive and difficult — a problem known as vendor lock-in. With AI, the stakes are higher because systems can process sensitive government and citizen data.

Under the new rules, Ghana's Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations will coordinate requirements, while the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) will assess proposed systems for cybersecurity, data protection, interoperability, sustainability, and local skills transfer.

The timing reflects Ghana's planned AI spending: its ten-year National AI Strategy includes a planned $250 million AI Compute Centre and upgrades to the National Data Centre. Centralizing procurement standards aims to set the rules before ministries start building separate AI systems that are difficult to connect later. As that spending moves from strategy to procurement, the review process will show how the policy holds up in practice.

Ghana is effectively using government procurement as industrial policy. Requiring skills transfer means a foreign company cannot simply sell software and leave the country dependent on it; requiring interoperability makes it harder for one supplier to become indispensable.

Governments are potentially among the biggest early buyers of AI in African markets, and whoever supplies those systems could shape how public-sector AI develops for years. Ghana is trying to keep that relationship on its own terms: foreign technology can come in, but control over public data, technical knowledge, and the ability to change suppliers should remain at home.

South Africans are replacing ATMs with supermarket tills

South Africans are finding a cheaper place to withdraw cash: the supermarket checkout. Retail tills now process about R326 billion ($19.6 billion) in cash-back withdrawals every year, across 663 million transactions, according to the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).

With cash-back, a shopper pays at a supermarket till and asks for extra cash instead of visiting an automated teller machine (ATM). For shoppers, it is also relatively cheaper: the SARB found the average withdrawal at tills to be R492 ($30), and processing R100 ($6) this way costs about 12 cents ($0.0072), compared with 68 cents ($0.041) through an ATM and R1.53 ($0.092) at a bank branch.

The ATM side of the ledger is heavier. South Africa's roughly 30,600 ATMs cost about R307,590 ($18,500) each to operate annually. Consumers then bear another cost: R17.7 billion ($1.1 billion) in withdrawal fees every year, plus billions more travelling to and queuing at cash points. Noticing the trend, several major South African banks have been reducing their ATM footprint.

Retailers also hold one big advantage: they handle large amounts of cash from shoppers every day. Instead of paying to transport that cash back to a bank, some of it can be handed directly to customers making withdrawals at the till. This keeps cash circulating while cutting the cost of transporting, storing, and eventually loading it into ATMs.

Nigeria saw a more extreme version of this during its 2023 cash crunch. As ATMs ran dry and bank withdrawals became difficult, cash-heavy businesses and point-of-sale (PoS) agents became alternative sources of physical money, often charging customers a premium to withdraw scarce notes. South Africa is not facing the same shortage, but the underlying lesson is similar: when accessing cash through banks becomes costly or inconvenient, businesses that already handle cash can become part of the distribution network.

Banks spent decades making ATMs the bridge between customers and physical cash. South Africa's retailers are now deciding that alternative routes work better for them. If cash-back expands further, especially into informal retail, the future of cash access may depend heavily on how effectively these existing shops can double as neighbourhood cash points.

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Source: TechCabal Daily, October 5, 2026. Written by Yemi Kareem and Emmanuel Nwosu; edited by Emmanuel Nwosu and Ganiu Oloruntade. Original: TechCabal Daily – Jig is up for spam callers.