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Telcos defiant, risk additional fines

By on September 10, 2015

Telecommunication operators have remained defiant over the N120.4 million fine imposed on them by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), as none of them made a move to pay at the close of work on Monday, which was the deadline given to them to pay the fine.

The implication is that each of the four GSM operators will risk incurring additional fines of N100,000 per day as long as the actual fine N120.4 million remains unpaid.

NCC last week fined MTN, N102.2 million, Globacom, N7.4 million, Etisalat N7 million, and Airtel, N3.8 million for violating its directive on the deactivation of all pre-registered SIM cards, all improperly registered SIM cards and all SIM cards that failed to undergo complete registration on their networks.

NCC gave them up till September 7, 2015 to pay the fines or risk additional N100,000 fine per day for each operator.

As of yesterday, THISDAY checks revealed that the N120.4 million fine had increased by an extra N800,000 for all the operators for the two days running.
Although no reason was given for the refusal to pay the fine as at the close of work yesterday, there are however indications that the operators might be warming up to contest the fine, as they did in 2012, when NCC slammed MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat with a cumulative fine of N1.17 billion, for poor service quality on their networks for the months of March and April, 2012.

The operators refused initially to pay the actual fine of N1.17 billion in 2012, but ended up paying more, as a result of the additional daily fines for delay in payment, which is likely going to play up this year again.

When contacted, the Director, Public Affairs at NCC, Mr. Tony Ojobo, said he had not been told by the finance department of NCC that the operators have paid the fine.

Some of the operators, however confided in THISDAY that the fine had not been paid.

The delay in paying the fine might not be unconnected that the operators are not willing to pay, and might be preparing to contest the fine in a law court with NCC.
The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, had told THISDAY that the operators might not have reason to contest the recent fine, since it was a violation of the directive from the NCC, and not on poor service quality, which he said, the operators were not supposed to take all the blame for.

The NCC had on Monday last week revealed to the media that it sanctioned all the four GSM operators to the tune of N120.4 million, following their contravention of its directive on SIM card deactivation.

NCC had ordered all telecoms operators to deactivate all active pre-registered SIM cards on their networks, as well as all incomplete and improperly registered SIM cards and gave them seven days to perfect it or face sanction.

The ultimatum, it was gathered, was the fallout of a meeting between Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), Department of State Services (DSS), the network operators and the NCC, which was called to address insecurity in the country.

The meeting attributed crimes committed against members of the public either by kidnappers, terrorists, robbers and threats to lives, to the use of such SIM cards across all networks.

 

[ThisDay]