TVC E, BUSINESS – The Federal Government (FG) has confirmed that MTN Nigeria had made a payment of N50bn towards resolving its protracted dispute with the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) over a fine of N1.04tn.
The Special Assistant to the Minister of Communications, Mr. Victor Oluwadamidare, made the confirmation in a statement and he described the N50bn as part payment, adding that the withdrawal of the case against the NCC and the payment had opened the door for further negotiations with MTN as requested by the company.
MTN was slammed with the penalty in October 2015 after it missed a deadline to disconnect 5.2 million unregistered SIM cards from its network.
The regulation guiding SIM card registration in the country had spelt that allowing an unregistered subscriber on a telecommunications network in the country would attract a penalty of N200, 000.
It imposed a $5.2bn fine that was later reduced to $3.9bn following an appeal and negotiation by the hierarchy of MTN.
Not satisfied with the level of reduction, MTN had approached the court to deter the government and the regulatory authority from taking any action by the end of the deadline for the payment of the fine.
