Reps Insist On N1.04trn Fine by MTN

 

 The House of Representatives has insisted that MTN pay the N1.04 trillion fine imposed on it by the Nigeria Communications Commission for defaulting in deactivation of unregistered SIMs.

The declaration was made yesterday by the Chairman, House Committee on Telecommunications, Hon. Saheed Akinade-Fijabi, at a meeting with the Executive vice chairman of the NCC, Prof Umar Dambatta at the National Assembly.Akinade-Fijabi noted that the down payment of N50 billion paid by MTN for out of court negotiation was not adequate for undermining government’s efforts at tackling terrorism challenges in the country.

“The law is there for you to abide by and not for you to go against them. MTN has been trying to circumvent the process and find a way of running away from the law instead of them facing the music’’, Akinade-Fijabi stated.

Similarly, Hon Johnson Agbonayinman, a member of the committee, posited that MTN violated sections 19 of the Telephone Subscribers Regulations under the Communications Act, which states that “Any licensee who fails to capture register, deregister or transmit the details of every individual or corporate subscriber to the central data base as specified in the regulation or as may be stipulated from time to time by the Commission is liable to a penalty of N200 000 for each subscription medium”.

He maintained that “MTN’s failure to deactivate 5.2 million SIM cards should be liable to a fine of N2.8 trillion.’’

In his response, the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta said that the Commission was committed to ensuring compliance by telecommunication operators to continually register all SIMS in the country.

“The process of registering SIM card is continuous. There is on-going registration exercise by all operators and NCC will do enforcement checking to ensure compliance,’’ Danbatta said.