NCC lifts regulatory service ban on MTN

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said it has lifted the ban on regulatory services which it placed on MTN Nigeria in July 2015 for several regulatory infractions.

The ban on regulatory services is said to have been placed on MTN after the regulator sent letters to MTN on May 4, May 9 and May 25 last year, telling the telecommunications company to withdraw unapproved tariffs and promotions specifically on MTN Trutalk, MTN Best II promotions among others.

According to the commission, “compliance checks on MTN after these letters were sent showed that it had failed and deliberately refused to comply with the directives issued by the commission.”

In a statement signed by Tony Ojobo, Director of Public Affairs, NCC, the commission said; “Inspite of that, MTN continued to introduce additional promotions in utter disregard for the NCC directive, contrary to the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003 and Regulation 8(2) of the Enforcement Regulations 2005 and the relevant provision in the guidelines for Advertisement and Promotion.

Further communication with MTN in letters dated June 19, 2015 and July 13, 2015 did not in any way discourage the operator from these infractions.”

In a meeting between the NCC and MTN management on October 5, 2015 it was resolved among others that NCC should compile and communicate list of all outstanding infractions to MTN stating what they need to do regarding each of the infractions, MTN should resolve all the outstanding infractions within two weeks and revert to the commission and the commission will monitor and validate the claims by MTN. The regulator also said that MTN must commit to settling all outstanding Annual Operating Levies (AOLs) debts from 2014 and MTN must pay all penalties resulting from these outstanding infractions.

Having abated all the infractions that gave rise to the suspension of regulatory services by the Commission; MTN sent several letters to the NCC pleading for the suspension to be lifted, the NCC through a letter signed by Efosa Idehen, Head, Compliance, Monitoring/Enforcement and Yetunde Akinloye, Head, Legal & Regulatory Services, lifted the suspension on MTN.

The letter stated that “we have reviewed MTN’s plea and also took into consideration the fact that MTN has abated all the infractions that gave rise to the suspension of regulatory services by the Commission.”

Ferdi Moolman, CEO MTN Nigeria, while talking about issues with the regulator said that it is the company’s desire to quickly restore relationship with the regulator and will try as much as possible to avoid being sanctioned for wrong doing.

“We are now very cautious that whatever we do is in the guidelines of the NCC. We don’t want to do something and then the NCC turns around to say this was never the agreement. That is the main reason why we need to constantly engage with the regulator to make sure that we are in line,” he said.

In the same vein, Amina Aygbola, MTN Executivesaid, “the regulator is the most important stakeholder that we have in the business that we are in and we have the utmost respect for our regulator and indeed all or stake holders, especially all government agencies.”

The NCC has however dissociated the ban lifting from the N1.04 trillion fine imposed on the telecom company for failing to deactivate 5.2 million improperly registered SIM cards.

“The lifting of the ban on regulatory services is in no way related to the fine the commission imposed on MTN on October 20, 2015, for failure to deactivate 5.2million improperly registered SIM cards for which a fine of N1.04Trillion was imposed,” the statement read.

The commission however warned MTN in its statement made available to BusinessDay that it “expects total compliance with NCA, 2003; Regulations and the Terms and Conditions of Licences issued to MTN and will not hesitate to impose necessary sanctions where MTN flouts any provision of the foregoing regulatory instruments.”

Jumoke Akiyode