Telcos Blamed For Noncompliance In The SIM Card Registration Exercise

The Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) Director-General Ezra Chiloba has blamed mobile service providers for not complying with the directives in the ongoing SIM card registration exercise.

In an interview with Spice FM on Tuesday, Chiloba said the mobile operators – Safaricom, Airtel, and Telkom Kenya- could not help the authority carry out their intended move of terminating unregistered lines because they were not well prepared.

Chiloba added that it wasn’t their intention to switch off lines in the previous deadline that was set for April 15.  He added that the regulator realized that some standards were not met noting confrontation of consumer protection issues.

“Our intention was not to switch off non-compliant users, but looking at how we ended up where we did in the last two weeks, it meant the authority had to take action and play a more active role in the process,” he said to Spice FM on Tuesday.

Chiloba stated that the operators will be monitored on a monthly basis to ensure that they are following the rules to meet the registration deadline of October 15, 2022.

“Within those six months on a monthly basis, the communication authority will be monitoring to see whether the operators are doing what they are supposed to do or they are just waiting for another push,” he stated.

The Communication Authority of Kenya extended the registration exercise by six months to October 15 to give more time to Kenyans who had not registered to complete the exercise. The extension also followed extensive consultations between CA and the Mobile Network Operators.

The regulator warned that users who will not have registered their SIM cards by October 15 will be fined. He further warned the consumers against blaming the authority for disconnecting their SIM cards after the lapse of the six months.

Currently, according to CA, “Safaricom PLC has reported 67 percent compliance, Airtel Kenya 55 percent while Telkom Kenya is at 33 percent”.

The Communication Authority of Kenya directive requires all SIM cards to be a re-registered failure to which they will be deactivated, in the government’s move to tame fraudulent use of SIM cards and improve data accuracy.

The move comes after a noticeable multitude of SIM cards were sold to people by unlicensed operators and agents, with the most unregistered cards discovered among people who bought their SIM cards before 2015, when the regulation was ineffective.

Those who will be caught in possession of unregistered SIM cards would face fines of up to Ksh300,000 or serve a jail term of six months or both.