Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
‘The real matric pass rate is 37.6%’
Western Cape got top spot – Schäfer
THEY are the lost generation, the thousands of born-frees whose absence from the matric pass roll speaks of an educational system in crisis.
Despite the announcement of a 3.1% increase in the national matric pass rate, the results have been met with mixed reactions by political parties, with the DA saying it is indicative of an education system in crisis.
Yesterday, experts and politicians questioned Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s assertion that the 2018 National Senior Certificate (NSC) pass rate stood at 78.2%.
They point to a pass rate that is less than half than the department’s figure.
“Unfortunately, we must also confront a shocking truth: the real matric pass rate is 37.6% if you include the number of 2016 Grade 10s who actually passed matric in 2018,” said DA MP Nomsa Marchesi.
Western Cape Education MEC Debbie Schäfer took a bold stand and claimed the Western Cape actually achieved the top spot in what she termed the “real matric pass rate”.
The province came third behind Gauteng and the Free State, with a pass rate of 81.5%, a decline from 84.4% in 2017, while Limpopo achieved the lowest pass rate at 69.4%.
“Our retention rate from Grades 10 to 12 is the highest in the country, at around 63%,” Schäfer said.
Schäfer said local government had consistently said, year-on-year, that when considering the NSC results one had to consider the numbers of pupils passing through the system and ultimately passing matric.
“We believe that retaining more learners in the system and giving them the opportunity to pass the NSC is more important than ‘losing’ learners along the way so that schools can achieve a higher pass rate,” she said.
“Therefore, when considering the NSC pass rate, it is important that we consider the retention of learners by comparing the number of learners enrolled for the NSC exams with the number of Grade 10 learners enrolled two years before that. This is known as the ‘real matric pass rate’.”
“It is disappointing that the minister did not release the results calculated according to the Inclusive Basket of Criteria, which the Department of Basic Education has been using for the past two years unofficially, and which factors in other indicators of success such as mathematics, physical science, and bachelor passes, in addition to the retention of learners as described above,” said Schäfer.
using social engineering to manipulate their victims into divulging their personal or confidential information.
“They capitalise on the fact that not all digital banking clients are digitally literate and exploit this vulnerability.
“Using technology, coupled with social engineering, criminals can gather sufficient information to impersonate victims, bypassing bank security protocols.
“South Africans using social media are at risk of phishing and should constantly be on the alert for activity which seems out of the ordinary.
“People should not rely solely on the preloaded internet security which comes standard with their computers and their operating systems – they should invest in more advanced security systems that are upgraded regularly – this extra cost is well worth it in the long run,” said Thomas.
The Weekend Argus interviewed three victims who had their internet banking illegally accessed with SIM cards swopped and in two incidents, ported to a different cellular network.
One man had R3.1m taken out of his business account when a sim swop was authorised without his consent.
A 78-year-old man almost lost his life savings when a SIM swop that he also didn’t authorise was done, a second attempt was made to take money out of his account after he got his number back.
However, he managed to freeze his bank account. Another man was preyed on twice by cybercriminals.
Once in 2016 when they took R1.2m and in December last year.
He is still trying to recover R82 000 from the bank.
FRAUDSTERS seem to be targeting elderly people who may not be techsavvy and people who go overseas.
These are the sentiments of Professor Darlene Lubbe, the daughter of one of the latest victims of SIM card swopping or porting.
Speaking to the Weekend Argus on behalf of her 78-year-old father, Lubbe said someone within a bank had to let someone from a cellphone company know there was money, and from there the scam was born, and they went after the details of the person and took over their number.
“How they get access to account details, I don’t know. There was a SIM swop in October without my dad’s knowledge, done by Vodacom. They cleared out 50 years of savings by transferring Absa Money Market to Absa Cheque and created 15 new beneficiaries. The money was gone within five hours. Both Absa and Vodacom deny responsibility,” said Lubbe.
In an affidavit to Absa’s fraud department, Lubbe’s father said he had noticed that he had no cellphone service and thought he had run out of airtime. He then went to a local cellphone shop where he was told to go to Vodacom. He went to a Vodacom store where he was informed that he did have airtime but needed a SIM swop.
“(The woman there) took the phone and to the back room for about 15 minutes. She put in a new SIM card, she didn’t give me my old SIM, and told me to wait four hours and then switch on my phone.
“The next morning, I tried to pay our domestic workers via internet banking and the computer asked for a 60-second confirmation, and I never got the message on my cellphone so I could not transfer any money to them,” read the affidavit.
After some hassle and a letter to the bank, Lubbe said the stolen R 500000 was paid back to them as a payment of goodwill by Absa.
But there was a second attempt at fraud on December 30 at 6.47pm, when someone ported her dad’s Vodacom number to MTN. “This despite the number being flagged as a number used in fraud in the past month. Vodacom instructed me nothing could be done until the number was back with them. So we had to contact MTN on January2 (when my dad realised his phone was not working again).
“MTN porting does not operate on holidays, so the fraudsters had 36 hours to play with. We managed to freeze all dad’s Absa accounts once again and have now had to delete the cell number and remove any numbers from his profile. The only safe way is to have no internet banking.”
Last week, the Weekend Argus reported on Bloubergstrand’s Feruccio Ferucci, who had his Absa business account swindled out of R3.1million while he was in Miami for two months.
The same modus operandi was used: a SIM swop was done that he did not authorise with Vodacom. His money was paid back to him by Absa, also labelled a “payment of goodwill”.
Absa’s Ally Mafunzwaini, head of national operations, RBB SA, said Absa had investigated the matter.
“In respect of tracking and tracing cases, every fraud case brought to our attention is checked against insider involvement as standard operating procedure. Otherwise, we invest heavily in leading technologies and skills to protect our customers from fraud,” he said.
He added that fraud was not Absa-specific, but industry-wide.
Vodacom’s Byron Kennedy said they were aware of the recent claims of SIM swopping,, and Vodacom treated any fraudulent activity on the network in a serious light. “Once we have completed our investigation, we will take appropriate action should we establish staff negligence or involvement.
“There have been several cases where people have claimed that the same thing happened to them with the same modus operandi. Is Vodacom aware of this? Yes. It is important to clarify that internet banking fraud cannot succeed unless the victim has compromised their banking account details and personal information, including their banking PIN/log-in details. This information cannot be obtained through a fraudulent or even a valid SIM swop. Typically, criminals first obtain an internet banking customer’s PIN and password through the likes of phishing emails.”
Kennedy said Vodacom was investigating matters of this nature.
Another Bloubergstrand man, who wished to remain anonymous, said he had R1.2m taken out his Absa account in 2016. “I recovered the money with lots of problems and delays from the bank and ended losing the interest on my money for two months,” he said.
Fraudsters did the same thing in December last year and he was still trying to recover R82 000 from his bank (not Absa; he has not named the bank due to ongoing investigations).
He said he had received SMSes from Vodacom early in the morning informing him that a SIM swop had been requested. However, he said there was another SMS that came through almost instantly after the first SMS, saying it had been approved. His number was ported from Vodacom to MTN.
MTN group executive for corporate affairs Jacqui O’Sullivan said: “MTN’s identity or subscription fraud has unfortunately become a consistent threat to all network operators and customers around the world, as criminals constantly work to find new ways to beat fraud-prevention systems.
“At MTN, we aim to protect customers from fraudulent transactions that often originate elsewhere, often through identity theft. ID theft is often the start of the fraud, with a criminal getting hold of sufficient personal information to pose as a credible ‘network agent’.
“Once the ‘agent’ has a customer on the line, they solicit more details from the customer to perpetrate the fraud. In other instances, sufficient personal data may have been stolen to effect the fraud directly.”
O’Sullivan cited a recent example when MTN proactively warned all its customers to beware of a scam that had developed last year.
“In this, a criminal, claiming to be an MTN call centre agent would request the customer’s security details under the pretence that they were blocking the processing of a SIM swop request being made on the subscriber’s number without their knowledge.
“The scammers were then using the customer’s responses, that they obtained during the call, to perform a fraudulent SIM swop. MTN made it clear that it would not contact customers from its call centre to block the processing of a SIM swop request.
“We also urged all our customers not to respond to unsolicited calls and requests for their security details from an unknown number.
“MTN is rolling out in-store biometrics as an additional layer of security to further halt such criminal activity. We have also introduced secure OTP (one time password) access to systems whereby users who are affected have a clear tracking and audit log. Our monitoring systems give us a view of all related SIM swop activities. MTN also only process SIM swop requests between 7am and 8pm.
“The problem of porting fraud is another route being pursued by criminals. Thieves use a person’s information to switch his or her phone number to a new service provider. The thieves can then use the phone to intercept messages (such as the OTP).
“Both porting fraud and illegal SIM swops start with criminals accessing some personal information about a customer through any number of ways, which is why it is critical that all South Africans strictly protect their personal information and not share any details with unsolicited calls.”
The SA Banking Risk Information Centre said in a statement that through fraudulent SIM swops, criminals could take control of their victim’s mobile number, enabling them to receive SMSes sent by the bank to the client.
These included TVCs (transaction verification codes), RVNs (random verification numbers), PINs or OTPs.
Using these codes together with compromised login credentials, criminals could change, add beneficiaries and transfer money out of the victim’s account.
“Mobile number portability) gives mobile phone users the ability to move to another mobile network and still retain their mobile number.
“In this scenario, the victim’s SIM card is deactivated and the criminal receives communication for the new SIM card issued by the second mobile network operator, enabling them to receive a victim’s TVC, RVN, PIN or OTPs,” the statement read.
Criminals first obtain an internet banking customer’s PIN and password through the likes of phishing emails
Byron Kennedy
Vodacom spokesperson