•Summon AGF, Chief of Staff The House of Representatives on Wednesday insisted that the MTN Nigeria must pay the N1. 04 trillion fine imposed on it by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) for SIM de-activation default. The House Committee on Telecommunications handed down the order on Tuesday, when the Minister of Communications Technology, Mr Adebayo Shittu and the officials of the NCC appeared before it on the up date of the fine of $5.2billion imposed on MTN Nigeria. This came just as the Committee expressed its total support for the NCC in all steps being taking to restore sanity in the nation’s telecommunications sector, lamenting that Nigeria as a nation had lost thousands of her citizenry to the Boko Haram insurgents due to MTN’s negligence by not obeying the law of the land on Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) cards registration directive. Also the Committee summoned the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami,SAN and the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, to appear before it next week and explained all they knew about the transaction. The Committee stated that this became necessary as the names of the duo were mentioned at one time or the other in the course of the investigations In addition,the Communications and Technology Minister, Mr Adebayo Shittu washed off his hand and that of the Executive Director of the NCC, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta in the entire transactions including the re negotiation of the fine by the MTN Nigeria,saying that the Company dealt directly withe the Presidency and that when it became a legal issue the AGF took it over and had never been briefed since then. Mr Shittu told the Committee to direct all its inquiries on the matter to the AGF who had been in charge since it came up and that neither the Ministry nor the NCC was aware of any negotiation but declared that it was expected that both the Ministry and the NCC must be part of any negotiation that would take place. t would be recalled that NCC on Oct. 2015 imposed a fine of N1.04 trillion against MTN Nigeria for failing to disconnect subscribers with unregistered and incomplete Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) cards within the stipulated time. However, while ruling yesterday, the Chairman of the Committee,Hon Saheed Akinade-Fijabi said that the fine if paid would redefine the relationship between the telecommunications operators and the regulator. Hon Akinade- Fijabi pointed out that the N50 billion paid by MTN as a down payment for negotiations out of court was not adequate to make up for allegedly undermining government’s efforts to tackle security challenges in the country. According to him, “the law is there to serve as deterrent for you not to go against them. MTN has been trying to circumvent the process and find a way of running away from the law instead of them facing the music.’’ A member of the Committee, Hon Johnson Agbonayinman on his said that MTN violated sections 19 and 20 of the Telephone Subscribers Regulations under the Communications Act 2010 and was duty bound to be made to face the full weight of the law of the land. . According to him,”Section 19 of the Act reads: “Any licensee who fails to capture register, deregister or transmit the details of every individual or corporate subscribers to the Central Data Base as specified in the regulation or as may be stipulated from time to time by the Commission is liable to a penalty of N200 000 for each subscription medium.” “Therefore MTN’s failure to deactivate 5.2million SIM cards should be liable to a fine of N2.8 trillion,’’ Agbonayinman declared. Contributing,another member, Hon Stephen Friday Olemija commended the good work of the Commission in trying to restore sanity into the sector in the face of the insurgents in the Country and urged them to cooperate with the Committee in its efforts to get to the root of the matter . According to Hon Ojemila,”we are the Representatives of the People here,we want to make Nigeria a better place for the unborn generations,but we can not achieve this by making the Country a dumping ground and encouraging foreign investors to be violating the laws of the land at will.” However, the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta said that the Commission was committed to ensuring compliance by telecommunication operators to register all SIM cards in the country. According to him,“SIM card registration is a continuous process. There is ongoing registration exercise by all operators and NCC will do enforcement checking to ensure compliance.” On the purport payment of N50 billion so far paid MTN. Danbatta said that NCC was not in receipt of the payment as the money was not paid into NCC‘s account. According to him, “I do not know the account where the money was paid into. The commission only received a letter from the Attorney-General of the Federation indicating that MTN had paid the amount into the federal government account.”]]>