NCC to begin prosecution of pre-registered SIM cards hawkers

NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management Mr. Sunday Dare, who sounded the warning, insisted that those selling and buying pre-registered SIM cards were breaking the law. Dare, who spoke with The Nation on the monitoring of compliance and enforcement of SIM Registration activities by NCC, maintained that imposition of sanctions on perpetrators of illegal activities would continue. He said prosecution of offenders would be stepped up in a final push to curb the menace because of its security implications. According to him, the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Nigerian Communications Commission and Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps will boost operations in this area. He added that this year alone, the NCC has imposed about N250 million fines on the telecom operators through the commission’s Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Unit. Dare said several joint raids and arrests have also been made. “This is a continuous exercise until we get to zero level. There is a renewed push and soon virtually all pre-registered SIM cards will be unplugged from the country’s mobile networks through the new technological solution the commission will soon put in place,” he said. A task force set up two weeks ago by NCC is set to announce some drastic measures which may result in huge sanctions on defaulting operators. It was discovered that the operators have started to clean up their internal systems in apparent fear that NCC will soon come down hard on them.]]>