Telecommunications companies that fail to verify and validate biometric, National Identity Number (NIN) and other personal information of subscribers will be charged N200,000 fine per line, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) has proposed.
The commission disclosed this in a proposed draft regulation on registration of telephone subscribers 2021 published on its website.
The federal government had asked Nigerians to enrol for NIN and link their unique number to the phone lines.
Section 19 of the draft document, NCC said mobile communications services providers must ensure that NINs are verified and validated before activation.
It said a penalty of N200,000 awaits those who breach the requirement.
In October 2015, NCC slammed fines on all mobile phone operators and fines on all mobile phone operators over the non-compliance with SIM deactivation directive.
The regulator had said it fined Globacom N7.4 million, Etisalat (now 9mobile) N7 million, Airtel N3.8 million, and MTN N102.2 million.
MTN later got a fine of N1.04 trillion for not deactivating 5.1 million unregistered lines.
The fine was eventually reduced to N330 billion with a condition that MTN will list on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) — a condition that has now been met by the telco.
MTN first paid N275 billion and completed the balance of N55 billion in May 2019.
