Six telcos fined record Sh11bn over sim card registration

Dar es Salaam. Six telecom companies have been hit with a Sh10.9 record fine for violation of subscriber registration rules, which authorities say endangered public security.

The hefty fines are the largest in a single swoop and would shake some of the companies struggling to build up their portfolios in the market dominated by at least three players, but who were also hit.

Yesterday the Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) fined the major telecom operators for registering new sim cards for subscribers whose details of Identification Cards (IDs) were questionable and others could not be traced in the database.

The affected companies are Halotel, which was fined Sh1.6billion, Airtel Sh1.08 billion, Smart Sh75million, Tigo Sh1.3 billion, Vodacom Sh945 million and Zantel Sh105 million. It was the second time in under three months that the telcos were landing hefty fines from the regulator over issues such as poor service delivery. On top of that, the operators also each received another penalty of Sh500 million for compromising and endangering public security by registering sim cards irregularly.

Officials from the companies who were present when the fines were read out at a press conference declined to speak to reporters. But it was apparent that most of them were caught offguard with the imposition of the huge penalty.

The decision was reached after an inspection by TCRA which was carried out to establish the extent to which service providers observed sim card registration rules and regulations. The TCRA Director General Mr James Kilaba said the regulator wanted to verify whether registrations were taking into account the customers’ identification process before the activation of sim cards.

“From this inspection, we established irregularities, such as activation of cards without completing registration procedures and the use of unauthorized IDs,” said Mr Kilaba.

According to him, the authorized documents are driving licenses, travel documents (passports), voters’ ID, National IDs, and Zanzibar residents’ IDs.

Other irregularities were failure to confirm customers’ information, allowing the registrations with other person’s IDs and the mismatch of the customer’s photos with the one on the ID.

Mobile phone subscribers in Tanzania grew by 1 per cent in 2016 to hit 40.17 million total subscribers, according to TCRA. Mobile phone use has surged in most African countries over the past decade, helped by the launch of cheaper smartphones and mobile money platforms.

Mobile money users in Tanzania alone grew to 18.08 million last year from 17.63 million previously. According to the central bank, telecommunications is one of the fastest growing sectors in the country.

Yesterday the TCRA boss noted that the action against the companies was not the first time for them to be warned after committing the offence.He said that a similar punishment had been issued in July last year, yet the telecom companies did not learn a lesson.

“This is not their first time…and for this fact, they have then been issued with an additional fine,” said Mr Kilaba.

On this additional fees, Halotel received the biggest fine of Sh822 million, Tigo Sh625 million, Airtel Sh542 million, Zantel Sh52 million and Smart Sh37 million.

“Going by the fact that the irregular registration of sim cards fuels crime incidents which are connected to mobile phones, we insist that the exercise breaches peace and security in society,” he explained.

“Section 33 of the Electronic and Postal Communications (Licensing) Regulations, requires that all telecom service providers who sell sim cards to register customers’ particulars on a special forms, and distributing unregistered sim cards is an offence,” added the TCRA boss.

When contacted for comment, the authorities of the fined telecom companies did not co-operate with The Citizen on Saturday.

Tigo’s Communications Manager, Woinde Shisael asked this reporter to send questions via email. However, by press time, there was no response on the matter.

When Airtlel was contacted, the company’s Director of communications, Ms Beatrice Singano said she was in a meeting but promised to give an explanation later during the day. She did not issue any details by the time this newspaper went to the press.

The communications officer for Zantel Ms Rukia Iddi Mtingwa said she was awaiting an official statement from the company’s representative who had taken part in the TCRA meeting. But she did not pick the calls later when this reporter pursued her for response.

For Vodacom, the Director of Communications and Public Relations Rosalynn Mworia did not pick calls, despite persistent efforts by this reporter. The assistants did not pick calls too.

Three months ago, seven mobile phone service providers were fined Sh695million over failure to meet quality standards of service provision set by TCRA.

The fine came after TCRA conducted a quality of service (QoS) measurement between January and March, this year, in three regions -- Dar es Salaam, Mbeya and Iringa.

According to the tests performed in the three regions, ranking them by the amount of fines imposed, Zantel was the leading in offering poor services after being charged Sh140 million followed by Tigo and Smart that were charged Sh120 million each and Vodacom Sh115 million At least Halotel and Airtel were better off after being charged Sh50 million and Sh55 million respectively.

Apart from fining the seven service providers, the TCRA ordered each operator to improve the quality of services they were offering and ensure that they were all in compliance with the requirements of the Quality of Service Regulations.