May 1, 2010: Telecom operators in Nigeria were mandated to start collecting biometric and non-biometric personal information for each new subscriber in an effort to improve information gathering towards enhancing national security. This was initiated by the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) in collaboration with other security agencies and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
November 7, 2011: The SIM Registration Regulations came into force. Section 19 of the SIM Registration Regulations sets out a fine of N200,000 for every SIM card which is found to be fully active without proper registration details while Section 20 of the Regulations also stipulates a fine of N200,000 for failure to deactivate any SIM Card without proper registration details.
November 2013: Operators were directed to fully bar any newly registered SIM card, which failed to perform a voice or data communication within 48 hours after its registration.
September 2014: The NCC, to whom operators upload registrations every month, shared details back to the operators of registration records that the NCC judged as invalid on the NCC system. Operators were directed to clean up their registration records through deactivation or reconcile the records within a 30-day period.
July 8, 2015: The NCC directed operators to deactivate all pre-registered SIM cards (SIMs registered but without a record of activity) within a period of 21 days - from July 8, 2015 to July 29, 2015.
August 4, 2015: Operators, representatives of the NSA, Director State Security (DSS) and the NCC held a meeting to discuss issues around SIM registration in Nigeria. The issue of invalid registrations was highlighted as a major threat to national security and a directive was issued to all telecommunications operators to deactivate all SIM cards with improper/invalid registration details by August 11, 2015.
August 17, 2015: The NCC and security agencies conducted a compliance audit on all operators between August 17, 2015 and August 19, 2015 following the expiry of the deadline of August 11, 2015, for deactivation of improperly registered SIM cards. The NCC disclosed, at a press conference on the same day that despite sharing a list of invalid registration details with operators, MTN had made little or no effort towards compliance with the deactivation directive whilst other operators had largely complied.
September 4, 2015: A high level meeting chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President of Nigeria was called at the presidential villa. This meeting is unprecedented in the Nigerian business industry as the telecom CEOs were brought to meet the heads of the main security agencies and the Executive Vice-Chairman of the NCC, in order for the compliance with the deactivation directive to be emphasised.
Operators were advised that continued non-compliance would lead to the imposition of penalties of N200,000 per improperly registered SIM card, and that all businesses must respect the law or risk licences being revoked. The Chief of Staff to the President of Nigeria implored operators to take the matter seriously noting that (i) security and safety of the people is No. 1 on the president's agenda; (ii) 70% of kidnappings, violent crimes and insurgence are facilitated using unregistered SIM cards making it impossible to trace the perpetrators; (iii) government supports the private sector but companies must operate within the law; (iv) in other countries heavy fines are levied on the private sector for non-compliance (e.g. JP Morgan’s $20bn fine).
It was also agreed that (i) operators were to immediately reconcile the records of their deactivations against the list of invalid registrations earlier shared with operators by the NCC by September 7, 2015; and (ii) a penalty of N200,000 per unregistered/poorly registered SIM card would be imposed as stipulated in the SIM Registration Regulations 2011.
Despite the above detailed entreaties and warnings over a 12-month period (from September 2014), on the importance of ensuring that only SIM cards with valid SIM registration details are active on telecommunications networks, MTN failed to comply with the directive to deactivate improperly registered subscribers.
September 2015: Following repeated warnings and compliance enforcement visits as detailed above, MTN only made a partial attempt to bar unregistered subscribers in selected areas over a few days in September 2015. Other operators had fully complied and reconciled their deactivations with the invalid registrations shared by the NCC up to four weeks earlier.
October 22, 2015: Having reviewed the registration records of all the telecom operators and having taken into consideration their compliance records, the NCC imposed a fine on MTN alone for non-compliance with SIM registration. This unprecedented fine is indicative of the magnitude of the transgression and the seriousness with which the NCC and the authorities are approaching this issue. It is also more likely to ensure that the willful non-compliance by MTN ceases.
Non-compliance
MTN’s non-compliance with the directive is unfortunately not an isolated incident. It needs to be seen in the context of a general pattern of non-compliance with regulatory directives that actually predates the current SIM registration infractions.
•Source: Nigerian Communications Commission
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