Lillian Ify Chukwu
Less than 24 hours after de-listing its shares from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, JSE, MTN Nigeria, one of Nigeria’s telecommunications service provider, took a major step targeted at assuaging the feelings of the county’s authorities over pending sanctions on it by paying $94.2m to renew its operating spectrum and extended the operating licence to 2021.
The telco is currently engaging the Nigerian government in discussions over the $5.2bn (about N1.4trn) fine recently imposed on it by the Nigeria Communications Commission, NCC, the industry regulator, over its failure to disconnect unregistered users.
The company, in a statement yesterday hinted that it received confirmation from the regulator that its operating spectrum in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz frequency bands had been renewed.
MTN’s operating spectrum and its digital mobile licence were issued in 2001, and both were due to expire in February 2016. Both have now been extended to 31 August, 2021, the telecoms operator said.
Reacting to the development, MTN’s Corporate Affairs Executive, Akinwale Goodluck, stated that the company viewed the extension as a demonstration of confidence in its capacity to continue to provide ground-breaking and innovative services to customers.
Shares in MTN, which earns 37 per cent of its revenue from Nigeria, had dropped 25 per cent since the N1.04trn fine was announced last week, and South Africa’s bourse on Monday suspended trading in its stock for a few hours.
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The firm’s shares recovered somewhat in early trade on the stock exchange advancing 0.9 per cent to 149.50 rand yesterday.
Meanwhile, facts have emerged that the abduction of former Finance Minister and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Chief Olu Falae, may have been one of the factors that led to the imposition of the fine on the company.
According to a post from Johannesburg, South Africa, by Matthew Davies, BBC’s Africa Business Report editor, security operatives discovered that abductors of the former SGF used unregistered MTN SIM to communicate with his family.
The reporter claimed the Federal Government finally ran out of patience with the mobile phone operator after repeated warnings that it deactivate unregistered SIM cards failed, although MTN Nigeria publicly stated that it had ‘complied’ with the NCC directive by deactivating over five million unregistered SIM cards from its network.
It was however learnt that efforts by Chief Executive, Sifiso Dabengwa, who was in charge of the Nigerian operations before taking up the top job, failed to secure negotiate for reduction of the fine.
The Federal Government was said to have rejected the plea from the company, insisting that MTN Nigeria pay the fine.
Reacting to the suspension of trading on the stocks of MTN at the South Africa’s bourse, Afrifocus Securities portfolio manager, Ferdi Heyneke, explained that “there has been some speculation that the company has agreed to pay the fine, but we really want to hear it from the company itself.”
