According to reports coming out from South Africa, the record fine levied on MTN Nigeria is linked to the role that unregistered MTN sim cards played in the kidnap of former minister of finance Olu Falae.

The source, South Africa’s City Press, reports that Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said the phone lines that the kidnappers used to conduct ransom negotiations belonged to MTN.


“Falae’s kidnappers used MTN SIM cards and MTN was unable to provide any registration data for those SIMs,” the commission said, as quoted in the report.

Sources close to the Commission say the decision on the $5.2 billion sanction was no longer a regulatory issue but now a matter of national security.


“The government insisted they must be sanctioned to make the right statement,” said an official quoted in the report. “In South Africa you can’t break their laws and get away with it. So why come to Nigeria and flout the laws?”

Other sources say that MTN had previously been warned about the security threat of unregistered sim cards.

The report said that MTN, along with other Telcos have been previously fined for flouting rules, based on the sum of N200,000 per defaulting SIM card. But the sim cards which were fined were based on random, limited-sample monitoring exercises, and not as numerous as in the current case. This could have given the impression that the fines were just a slap-on-the-wrist.



But “this time, the commission decided to penalize MTN for the total number of improperly registered cards – hence the unprecedented size of the fine”.

The report continues by saying that before Falae was kidnapped, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), and the Department of State Security (DSS) cited concerns that the absence of registration data on sims was being exploited by criminals from kidnappers and fraudsters to Boko Haram.

In a meeting in August, Telcos were instructed to deactivate invalid and improperly registered SIM cards.

One week after the deadline had elapsed, the NCC’s head of compliance said at a press conference that, while other networks were taking steps to deactivate defaulting lines, MTN, which accounted for 47 percent of the improperly registered cards, showed “no compliance”.
more on...http://nairametrics.com/report-links-mtn-nigerias-record-5billion-fine-to-kidnap-of-former-minister-olu-falae-and-several-unheeded-warnings/

segello:
According to reports coming out from South Africa, the record fine levied on MTN Nigeria is linked to the role that unregistered MTN sim cards played in the kidnap of former minister of finance Olu Falae.

The source, South Africa’s City Press, reports that Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said the phone lines that the kidnappers used to conduct ransom negotiations belonged to MTN.


“Falae’s kidnappers used MTN SIM cards and MTN was unable to provide any registration data for those SIMs,” the commission said, as quoted in the report.

Sources close to the Commission say the decision on the $5.2 billion sanction was no longer a regulatory issue but now a matter of national security.


“The government insisted they must be sanctioned to make the right statement,” said an official quoted in the report. “In South Africa you can’t break their laws and get away with it. So why come to Nigeria and flout the laws?”

Other sources say that MTN had previously been warned about the security threat of unregistered sim cards.

The report said that MTN, along with other Telcos have been previously fined for flouting rules, based on the sum of N200,000 per defaulting SIM card. But the sim cards which were fined were based on random, limited-sample monitoring exercises, and not as numerous as in the current case. This could have given the impression that the fines were just a slap-on-the-wrist.



But “this time, the commission decided to penalize MTN for the total number of improperly registered cards – hence the unprecedented size of the fine”.

The report continues by saying that before Falae was kidnapped, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), and the Department of State Security (DSS) cited concerns that the absence of registration data on sims was being exploited by criminals from kidnappers and fraudsters to Boko Haram.

In a meeting in August, Telcos were instructed to deactivate invalid and improperly registered SIM cards.

One week after the deadline had elapsed, the NCC’s head of compliance said at a press conference that, while other networks were taking steps to deactivate defaulting lines, MTN, which accounted for 47 percent of the improperly registered cards, showed “no compliance”.
more on...http://nairametrics.com/report-links-mtn-nigerias-record-5billion-fine-to-kidnap-of-former-minister-olu-falae-and-several-unheeded-warnings/

Make I buy land here..

I no get

Landed property!!

to cut the long story short pls summarize...

All this talk talk
Is the customers that will pay the fine
Just imagine MTN taking 10naira from all their customers credits
Now tell me who is paying the fine.

Codedb2:
All this talk talk
Is the customers that will pay the fine
Just imagine MTN taking 10naira from all their customers credits
Now tell me who is paying the fine.

MTN has about 40 million customers in Nigeria. They have been fined over 1 trillion Naira.
It is impossible to get such money from customers contrary to what you are insinuating or afraid of as even taking 1,000 naira from each customer makes it 40 billion Naira.

they would pay a fine but not that amount, they might be warned not to make public the exact amount paid, but tell the public the paid that $5billon fine.

Mynd44:

MTN has about 40 million customers in Nigeria. They have been fined over 1 trillion Naira.
It is impossible to get such money from customers contrary to what you are insinuating or afraid of as even taking 1,000 naira from each customer makes it 40 billion Naira.

Mister, as their director of finance
Are they going to pay it at once?

Codedb2:

Mister, as their director of finance Are they going to pay it at once?

Did you miss where the NCC said they have to pay before November 17?

Mynd44:

Did you miss where the NCC said they have to pay before November 17?

Okay the will pay before 17th
But they can collect it back from their customers in 3yrs
That's all

Codedb2:


Okay the will pay before 17th
But they can collect it back from their customers in 3yrs
That's all

So if you are the COO of MTN and hit with a fine this huge you will plan to steal from customers knowing that the same regulatory body might hit you with another one?

MTN sef..............................and national security sef

Mynd44:

So if you are the COO of MTN and hit with a fine this huge you will plan to steal from customers knowing that the same regulatory body might hit you with another one?

Pls dude tell me that you are not a Nigerian
I know how much I have spent on Mtn credit since last week that made me to switch to Etisalat
No body is regulating anything Bro. When they will do it you will not notice
In fact they have been doing it for long.
A strange number called me last week and I picked it Mtn deducted 50naira from me.
I wanted to use the remaining credit to send msg
When I finished the msg I discovered that my acc is 00.

Well I support the fine.

It's time to make an example

I support the fine and I support the sanction

as much as i dislike them ... i still kinda feel some pity for them

The ko-ko is that MTN won't pay any $5billion on or b4 Nov 17... Forget all these NCC gra-gra....

MTN must pay their fine. As for them taking the money from customers unnecessarily, it will boomerang against them.
The time to be serious is now. Security measures is not what we should jokes about.
Any sim card that is not properly registered must be deactivated without further delay.
Nigeria is no more a land of anything goes. The government in power now is a serious one.
Things must be done according to lay down rules.
Change is here to stay

wow

plandata:
wow

Moderators this guy is a scammer using nairaland to perpetuate fraud. he is a known scammer

Naija I hail o. That fine huge but they can't use it for any better thing. Dem go chop am clean mouth.

FG needs to fine NCC too and Nigerians need to fine FG. NONSENSE!!!

Codedb2:
All this talk talk Is the customers that will pay the fine Just imagine MTN taking 10naira from all their customers credits Now tell me who is paying the fine.

They've done it to me several times after the fine.

Codedb2:

Pls dude tell me that you are not a Nigerian
I know how much I have spent on Mtn credit since last week that made me to switch to Etisalat
No body is regulating anything Bro. When they will do it you will not notice
In fact they have been doing it for long.
A strange number called me last week and I picked it Mtn deducted 50naira from me.
I wanted to use the remaining credit to send msg
When I finished the msg I discovered that my acc is 00.

It's either that dude is not a Nigerian or he doesnt use mtn sims.
Mtn steals with every messages they spam to users e.g callerfeel, callertune, news, sports, musics, health, security tips etc.

Someone came up on nairaland some few months ago and there was a big argument if ncc was a revenue generating agency or not....! The usual suspects were up and about the thread and abusing anyone that argued otherwise...

Now I believe God is nigerian....the money if it comes in even if it's staggered could help alleviate some part of our economic woes! Now that oil prices deepened

As for those who want to play politics with this I will say go lick lime....

This is a good development if the president uses the money well, ie save a large chunk of it, dedicate the other chunk to ONLY road rehabilitation projects....

If money is recovered from any looter, we rededicate the looters money to development of Healthcare,and health research make sure there are at least 6world class hospitals in every geopolitical zone in nigeria....

hmnnn

mtn can't steal this money from customers except the greedy customers that will jump at any foolish package introduced to him. I don't ans those short codes call, no response to sms, avoid pressing any number when your call out is ringing, stick to a package you understand the terms and conditions and any other precautions you can think of, I have been using a single package for a year now, am not even interested in their advert so I won't be deceived, anytime I plan to use any package, I always believed some must have been scammed, so I just ask Google for the terms and conditions and see people's comments on blogs about such package.

OlujobaSamuel:
mtn can't steal this money from customers except the greedy customers that will jump at any foolish package introduced to him. I don't ans those short codes call, no response to sms, avoid pressing any number when your call out is ringing, stick to a package you understand the terms and conditions and any other precautions you can think of, I have been using a single package for a year now, am not even interested in their advert so I won't be deceived, anytime I plan to use any package, I always believed some must have been scammed, so I just ask Google for the terms and conditions and see people's comments on blogs about such package.

I totally disagree with you on this. They are scammers. Look, I subscribed to a monthly BB plan, they deducted their 1k from my airtime but didn't subscribed me. I called their customer care centre, the fella told me, my number have been jammed. Only God knows what that means but he has sent my number to their technical room to fix it. Not satisfied with his response I called them again, a female care rep confirmed what the first rep told me that my number is on queue that she will just remind them to hasten up. 2days later, I was yet to be subscribed, I called again to inform them of my current subscription status, a rep told me, they are still working on it but what they'll do. They'll refresh my line and refund my airtime back since I can't even subscribe anymore with the line. For a week, this problem persisted and I called them finally to voice my concern only for the rep to tell me I was subscribed and that I've exhausted my data, all effort to explain to him what I went through fell on deaf ears. In fact he was even rude to me. I called again and got same response from another rep. That's how 1k went down the drain. Brother MTN deserves this punishment.

Codedb2:

Pls dude tell me that you are not a Nigerian
I know how much I have spent on Mtn credit since last week that made me to switch to Etisalat
No body is regulating anything Bro. When they will do it you will not notice
In fact they have been doing it for long.
A strange number called me last week and I picked it Mtn deducted 50naira from me.
I wanted to use the remaining credit to send msg
When I finished the msg I discovered that my acc is 00.

...

SAME THING WITH ME OH. I CALLED THEIR CUSTOMER CARE TIRE. THEY SAY THAT THEY CAN SEE THE DEDUCTIONS BUT THEY CAN'T SAY EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS FOR AT THEIR END, EXCEPT THEY CONTACT THEIR TECH SUPPORT END.

TILL NOW, SAME STORY. ALMOST 5 TIMES IN A WEEK!!!!

kel4soft:


I totally disagree with you on this. They are scammers. Look, I subscribed to a monthly BB plan, they deducted their 1k from my airtime but didn't subscribed me. I called their customer care centre, the fella told me, my number have been jammed. Only God knows what that means but he has sent my number to their technical room to fix it. Not satisfied with his response I called them again, a female care rep confirmed what the first rep told me that my number is on queue that she will just remind them to hasten up. 2days later, I was yet to be subscribed, I called again to inform them of my current subscription status, a rep told me, they are still working on it but what they'll do. They'll refresh my line and refund my airtime back since I can't even subscribe anymore with the line. For a week, this problem persisted and I called them finally to voice my concern only for the rep to tell me I was subscribed and that I've exhausted my data, all effort to explain to him what I went through fell on deaf ears. In fact he was even rude to me. I called again and got same response from another rep. That's how 1k went down the drain. Brother MTN deserves this punishment.

...
SAME THING WITH ME OH. I CALLED THEIR CUSTOMER
CARE TIRE. THEY SAY THAT THEY CAN SEE THE
DEDUCTIONS BUT THEY CAN'T SAY EXACTLY WHAT IT
WAS FOR AT THEIR END, EXCEPT THEY CONTACT THEIR
TECH SUPPORT END.
TILL NOW, SAME STORY. ALMOST 5 TIMES IN A
WEEK!!!!