SAN FRANCISCO, December 22, (THEWILL) – Despite MTN Nigeria’s hire of seven Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs, to challenge the $5.2 billion fine slammed on it by the Nigeria Communications Commission, NCC, the Federal Government has vowed to enforce the December 31 deadline given to the wireless operator to pay the $3.9 billion which the penalty was later reduced to.
The Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, who disclosed this through his media aide, Victor Oluwadamilare, stressed that Nigeria will not consider an extension to the deadline.
“MTN has the right to seek the court’s interpretation if it feels unsatisfied with the action of the regulator but nothing would stop the government action on the fine,” he said.
Oluwadamilare declined to comment on what will happen if MTN Nigeria misses the deadline, even though Vanguard reported the Communications Minister Shittu as threatening that another fine could be imposed.
The NCC had imposed the penalty on MTN for failing to meet a set deadline for the disconnection of 5.1 million unregistered subscribers as security agencies seek to fight crime in a country with poor identity records.
Following talks with the regulator led by MTN Chairman Phuthuma Nhleko, the initial fine of $5.2 billion was reduced by 25 percent earlier this month, with a warning that it should be paid latest by the last day of the year.
But MTN through its lawyers recently dragged the federal government and the NCC before a Federal High Court in Lagos, urging the court to quash the fine because the NCC does not have the constitutional power to impose such a fine on it. It also claimed that it was not afforded its constitutional right to fair hearing before a court of competent jurisdiction and, more importantly, it had not been found guilty of any offence that would warrant it paying such an outrageous fine.
