NCC said it was expecting telecoms giant MTN to meet a deadline for paying a record $3.9 billion fine which expires Thursday, despite the South African operator challenging the penalty in court. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), had in October fined the firm for missing a deadline to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered SIM cards, citing security concerns in a country plagued by frequent kidnappings and an extremist Islamist insurgency Boko Haram.
It imposed a whopping $5.2 billion fine, later reduced to $3.9 billion (3.6 billion euros) following an appeal by MTN. “If MTN fails to meet the deadline today (Thursday), the regulatory body will enforce the fine,” Nigerian communications ministry spokesman Victor Oluwadamilare told AFP.
Oluwadamilare said the pending legal proceedings had nothing to do with the payment deadline, saying “the court case is not tantamount to extending the deadline.” Johannesburg-based MTN declined to offer a detailed response on Thursday, but said earlier this month it would launch a legal challenge in the Federal High Court in Lagos against the fine, and expected all parties “to restrain from taking further action” until the case was concluded.
“Normally when it goes to arbitration like this, it would make sense that the NCC can’t impose the fine until there’s a decision from the court,” Amy Cameron, telecoms analyst at BMI Research, told AFP in London. “I would expect that it’s highly unlikely that MTN would pay anything.”
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of 170 million people, is MTN group’s largest market with 62.8 million subscribers. It operates in 22 countries in Africa and the Middle East. “MTN is committed to Nigeria and it’s going to stay there. Nigeria is its most profitable market and it has no intention of leaving,” said Cameron.