Daily Sun reports that as deadline for the payment of $5.2billion fine elapsed yesterday, reprieve seems far from MTN Nigeria as its regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), is still standing by the penalty despite ongoing negotiation.
NCC’s spokesman, Tony Ojobo, said in a statement on Monday that the regulator was looking into MTN’s plea for leniency but the fine remained because MTN has admitted to breaking the law.
“The fine remains but the appeal and other engagements with MTN may affect the payment deadline,” Ojobo said.
He explained that it was not only MTN that was sanctioned , but also all other mobile phone companies , saying that on August 4, 2015, at a meeting of all the representatives of the Mobile Network Operators (MNO) with NCC, major security challenges through preregistered, unregistered and improperly registered SIM cards topped the agenda after which Operators were given the ultimatum to deactivate such within seven days.
On August 14, 2015, three days after the ultimatum expired, NCC carried out a network audit. But while other operators complied with the directive to deactivate the improperly registered SIM cards, MTN showed no sign of compliance at all.
“Please recall that four operators; MTN, Airtel, Globacom and Etisalat, were sanctioned in August for non-compliance with the directive to deactivate the improperly registered SIM cards. MTN got a fine of N102.2million, Globacom N7.4million, Etisalat N7million and Airtel N3.8million fine. Others complied while MTN flouted the fine.
“Based on the report of the compliance Audit Team, an Enforcement Team which visited MTN from September 2 – 4, 2015 wherein MTN admitted that the team confirmed that 5.2million improperly registered SIM cards were still left active on their network; hence, a contravention of the regulations was established (Daily Sun)