Reps, Buhari differ over N1.04trn MTN fine

By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja

The House of Representatives Committee on Telecommunications has insisted that leading telecommunications giants MTN must pay the N1.04 trillion fine imposed on it by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) last October over its failure to deactivate unregistered SIMs as directed by the Commission.
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Saheed Akinade-Fijabi said the fine, if paid will redefine the relationship between the telecommunications operators and the regulator.

The committee had also summoned the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari and teh Attorney General to the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN to explain the rationale behind the reduction in the fine.
According to him, the N50 billion paid by MTN as a down payment for negotiations out of court was not adequate.
“The law is there to serve as deterrence for you not 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,” the lawmaker said at a meeting with NCC over the matter yesterday.

A member of the committee, Hon. Johnson Agbonayinma also said that MTN violated sections 19 and 20 of the Telephone Subscribers Regulations under the Communications Act 2010. “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.
“Therefore MTN’s failure to deactivate 5.2million SIM cards should be liable to a fine of N2.8 trillion,’’ Agbonayinman said.
In his remark, Executive Vice-Chairman of the NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta however said the commission was committed to ensuring compliance by telecommunication operators to register all SIM cards in the country.

“SIM card registration is a continuous process. There is ongoing registration exercise by all operators and NCC will do enforcement checking to ensure compliance,’’ Danbatta said.
He also disclosed that NCC has not received the N50 billion reportedly paid by MTN.
“I do not know the account where the money was paid into. The commission only received a letter from the Attorney-General of the Federation indicating that MTN has paid the amount into the federal government account,’’ he stated.