The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has lifted the ban on MTN Nigeria. The sanction was imposed on the telecom giant on 13th July, 2015. NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Mr. Tony Ojobo disclosed this on Wednesday.
Speaking to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr. Ojobo made it clear that the sanctions lifted were for 24 identified infringements which have nothing to do with the sanction imposed on MTN for failing to de-activate unregistered SIMs.
According to Tony’s statement, the Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Team of NCC discovered a number of infringements of its regulations by MTN on June 2015. He explained further that MTN was sanctioned in compliance with its guidelines because of its inability to remedy the identified infractions.
Tony said, the commission punished MTN for the infringement by withdrawing its regulatory services. However, following the remediation of the 24 infractions by the telecom giant, the commission has lifted the ban in a letter it sent to MTN on 14 March, 2016.
The lifting of the ban as explained by Tony is without prejudice to the current court case it has with MTN. The fine for SIM card deactivation according to Tony is a different infringement from the 24 infractions that have been resolved and sanction lifted.
