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De Ware Tijd put it well today: the TAS deserves protection as an institutionand political power games should not be part of that. I fully agree with that. But there is more to say. It is a pattern that Suriname sees too often. A new supervisory board is appointed, a new management team is appointed — and before a single meeting has taken place, accusations are already flying back and forth.
Criminalization as the first reflex. Not content, but conflict. Not vision, but blame. This not only harms the institution involved. It damages the image of Suriname as a whole. Investors are watching. International partners are watching. And what they see is a country where institutions are torn apart by internal strife, while the real challenges remain unanswered.
“The management and staff of the TAS must make a thorough study as soon as possible of what AI means for its regulatory tasks”
Recently the same in the fishing sector. The same reflexes. Same accusations. The same bad image to the outside world. There will come a time when Suriname will do itself irreparable damage by continuing this pattern.
The TAS is not an enemy — it is a necessity
Let me be clear about my own position. I have criticized the TAS position on Starlink. I maintain that criticism. But that criticism focuses on policy — not the institution itself. The TAS enforces a law from 2004. That is its job.
The political responsibility for updating that policy lies with the Ministry of Communications. In all countries in the world, the telecom regulator is the authority that ensures that there is no chaos in the spectrum, in communications, in the digital infrastructure. Without that regulator: arbitrariness, interference, abuse. The TAS fulfills an indispensable role. That role deserves respect — and space to be exercised.
What the TAS needs is not conflict. It needs a knowledge boost – a thorough orientation on the digital world of 2026 and what that means for its regulatory task.
The real urgency: data security and cyber security
Suriname has focused on digitalization. Fine. But digitalization without protection is dangerous. And in that area lies an enormous task that has hardly been tackled.
All ministries store data from citizens. No one knows how safely that happens. There are no public standards, no supervisory authority that monitors this, no legislation that obliges companies and government agencies to handle personal data responsibly. The DNA didn’t do anything about it. My appeals about this have so far fallen on deaf ears.
And in the meantime, we see in the Netherlands how personal data of telephone subscribers is being stolen. How patient data ends up on the street in Almere. In America, billions are committed fraud every year through digital scams. Call centers operating from India, Pakistan and other countries use stolen data to manipulate people — and Surinamese data is also misused for this purpose. Call centers operating in Suriname may be part of those same networks. Without regulation, no one knows. Without supervision, no one can intervene.
The TAS is the appropriate body to tackle this issue — but it needs an up-to-date legal framework and the knowledge to enforce it.
The TAS and AI: an inevitable confrontation
Artificial intelligence is changing everything — including the telecom sector, including communications regulation. Deepfakes, automated scams, AI-driven network attacks, synthetic voices scamming people — these are not future scenarios. This is happening now.
A regulator that is not prepared for this cannot properly perform its tasks. The management and staff of the TAS must make a thorough study of what AI means for its regulatory tasks as soon as possible. And not following AI developments immediately puts Suriname as a whole at a disadvantage — economically, security and administratively.
Start with orientation, not conflict
The new Supervisory Board has a supervisory task. That is a responsible position. But overseeing an institution you don’t understand isn’t oversight — it’s noise. My appeal is concrete: don’t start with accusations, but start with learning. Organize a thorough orientation on Digital Suriname. Invite experts. Understand what the TAS does, what it should do, and what the difference is. After that, you as a Supervisory Board can really supervise.
Then, together with the management and staff, bring the TAS to the level that Suriname needs in 2026. Update the laws and regulations. Make room for new technologies. Set standards for data security. cyber security issues. That’s the job. Not criminalizing colleagues.
Starlink: an open issue
I repeat what I wrote earlier: Starlink will be technically available throughout Suriname from 2026. All neighboring countries have allowed it. It is being stopped based on a law that was not written for this technology. The internet must be a basic facility — just like water, electricity and gas. This requires a policy change from the Ministry of Communications, and a TAS that provides constructive input.
Who writes this — and on what basis? National Outsource Center NV (NOC) is not an outside commentator. In 2016, NOC developed Octopus — a system for fraud detection at telephone companies. Fraud in the telecom sector is more widespread than most people realize: stolen SIM cards, illegal call forwarding, misuse of numbers for scam operations.
Octopus recognizes those patterns and stops them. The latest release from Octopus focuses not only on fraud detection, but also on protecting data in the event of theft: encryption and layered security so that stolen data is unusable. This system is currently being tested at two funds in the Netherlands.
NOC collaborates with international telecom companies and closely monitors developments in the field of AI, cybersecurity and data security. We publish regularly — not for attention, but because we believe that knowledge should be shared.
Normann Kleine (Founder NOC)
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