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Telecos to be sanctioned N200,000 for not verifying NIN – NCC

Oluwasina Phillip

The Nigerian Communications Commission has proposed a fine of N200,000 for mobile communications services providers that fail to verify and validate biometric, National Identity Number and other personal information of each subscriber to their services.

This was contained in a proposed draft regulation on registration of telephone subscribers 2020 recently published on NCC’s website.

The draft document read, “A licensee who fails to verify and validate biometric, NIN and other personal information before activation is liable to a penalty of N200, 000 for each subscription medium in breach of these requirements.”

According to the regulation, mobile services providers that allow subscribers to make and receive calls, send and receive short message services and other range of services usually provided by such operators without first verifying the subscribers’ personal information, including NIN, will be fined per subscription medium.

Telecommunication companies gained 195,313 subscribers in the month of July according to new industry statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission.

In June the total number of subscribers was 187,275,547. In July it grew to 187,470,860. This is a sustained growth from the month of June, when telcos began to witness subscriber growth after the effect of sim ban sale began to wane.

In December 2020, the sale and registration of new SIM cards was banned by the Federal Government and a December 30 deadline for people to link their National Identity Number with their SIM cards was set.

In April, the Federal Government approved the activation of new SIM card registration with mandatory National Identity Number linking.

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