Telecommunication operators have remained defiant over the N120.4 million fine imposed on them by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), as none of them made a move to pay at the close of work on Monday, which was the deadline given to them to pay the fine.
The implication is that each of the four GSM operators will risk incurring additional fines of N100,000 per day as long as the actual fine N120.4 million remains unpaid.
NCC last week fined MTN, N102.2 million, Globacom, N7.4 million, Etisalat N7 million, and Airtel, N3.8 million for violating its directive on the deactivation of all pre-registered SIM cards, all improperly registered SIM cards and all SIM cards that failed to undergo complete registration on their networks.
NCC gave them up till September 7, 2015 to pay the fines or risk additional N100,000 fine per day for each operator.
As of yesterday, it was revealed that the N120.4 million fine had increased by an extra N800,000 for all the operators for the two days running.
Although no reason was given for the refusal to pay the fine as at the close of work yesterday, there are however indications that the operators might be warming up to contest the fine, as they did in 2012, when NCC slammed MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat with a cumulative fine of N1.17 billion, for poor service quality on their networks for the months of March and April, 2012.
The operators refused initially to pay the actual fine of N1.17 billion in 2012, but ended up paying more, as a result of the additional daily fines for delay in payment, which is likely going to play up this year again.
