Stolen phones cost FCO £600,000

[Gollom]

One bill included calls to a South Pacific number totalling £289,991.

Shakes head in disbelief.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5201748.stm

Maybe the government could have put that money into a hospital somewhere? Sorry, just daydreaming.....

 

[A-AvantGarde]

I was shocked when I saw this one too. How incompetent can they be?

 

[grober]

I wonder?

Wallis and Futuna Islands have a total population of 16,000. Its a French protectorate consisting of 3 islands. https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/wf.html I imagine it would be able to isolate which island received the calls. I would imagine also that the number people in Iraq wishing to contact someone in a predominantly Roman Catholic Polonesian population would be very small. Personally I would be concentrating on who receive the calls rather than who made them. Wonder if there are any British foreign office/diplomatic core/government staff based there??? Just wondering you understand?

 

[glojo]

How many times have we seen that honesty might not perhaps be the best policy, and a good story always beats a factual recital.

I wonder if these telephones were really stolen??? Or perhaps were they simply 'reallocated'

John the suspicious

 

[grober]

Sex Chat Lines in Polonesian???

It would appear from the BBC news item that:-
One bill included calls to a South Pacific number totalling £289,991 - made to a £5.95 a minute number in the Wallis and Futuna Islands. So maybe the islands are unwittingly (or otherwise) hosting one of those "sex chat lines". Wonder if anyone tried the number to see what language was spoken?? Purely for the purposes of investigation of course. I'm betting it wasnt in Arabic!