Call made for SIM registration to be extended

By Lemach Lavari
The Government should allow an extension of six months for people in rural areas to register their SIM cards, the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission says.
Commissioner Paulus Ain said yesterday that many people in the rural areas were yet to register their SIM cards.
He said the ICCC, as the mandated authority representing consumers, had asked the Government to extend the deadline.
“We request that the Government should reconsider its current position and further extend the deadline,” Ain said.
“Deactivation will deprive the rural people of a vital service.”
Ain also said the identification requirements to register SIM cards were too stringent for the rural people.
He said the registration process required people to have a form of formal identification.
“However, many people in rural areas do not have ID cards,” he said.
“We can work with ward councillors or pastors who can easily identify people in their villages. Let’s make it easy for them to register their SIM cards.”
Ain said the mobile network operators were not doing enough to get people in remote areas registered.
“On behalf of the customers, we are requesting the operators to deploy teams to all districts.”
According to the SIM Card Regulation 2016, NICTA had issued an 18-month notice to mobile network operators to have subscribers register their SIM cards from July 23, 2016, to Jan 23, 2018.
The deadline was extended by Communications Minister Sam Basil on Jan 23 to April 30 – a total of 22 months’ notice for all mobile network operators.