NCC Insists No Extension In SIM Registration Deadline

The Nigerian Communications Commission has disregarded the plea by the National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers for a three-month extension of the Subscriber Identity Module card registration exercise.

The NCC said on Thursday there was no going back on its decision to end the exercise on Sunday, June 30, 2013.

Speaking to our correspondent on the telephone, the Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Mr. Tony Ojobo, said, "We are not extending the deadline. This exercise has been on for two years now."

Owing to the fact that the exercise will be ending on Sunday, which is a non-working day, Ojobo said telecoms service providers had their arrangements to make in that regard, as the NCC could not give them direction on how to carry out registration on that day.

"The NCC is not a service provider. NCC itself has stopped SIM registration," he said, while referring to the agency's initial direct role in the registration process, adding, "If the service providers register on Sunday, good."

Due to the various problems affecting the registration of SIM cards in the country, NATCOMS had on Wednesday called for a three-month extension of the exercise.

The association said that in the last two to three weeks, reports reaching it showed that some 'umbrella' SIM registration agents were not collecting the full details of subscribers because of their rush to register as many subscribers as possible so as to get paid big.

The National President, NATCOMS, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, said, "Some agents, during the active registration period, and even now, are asking subscribers to pay N100 before registration. A situation that discourages subscribers.

"Some agents, even when they are agents of a particular network operator, collect other operators' SIM cards for registration in order to shore up the number of SIM cards they register daily, while some agents copy their daily registered subscribers and give to their colleagues in business as some form of help."

NATCOMS said in view of these challenges, a lot of subscribers would be locked out of the networks due to no fault of theirs because they had previously registered their SIM cards.

The NCC had on Tuesday insisted that the June 30 deadline for SIM registration in the country would not be extended.

The commission reiterated that there would be no excuse for anyone whose SIM was unregistered by that date as all unregistered SIMs would be disconnected.

It, however, advised subscribers to make efforts to know what their registration status was if they had any doubts about it.

"Subscribers can send 'REG' to 746 to confirm if their SIMs have been registered or not," Ojobo had said.

Source: The Punch