By MKPE ABANG
MTN, Africa’s largest mobile network operator, can’t seem to stay out of trouble as the Rwandan regulator, Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA) has come down hard on MTN Rwanda with a fine of $8.5 million breach of licence obligations.
In a press release issued May 16, 2017 by the RURA and signed by its spokesperson, Anthony Kulamba, titled ‘The Regulator imposes administrative sanctions against MTN Rwanda Ltd’, RURA announced that it had imposed “administrative sanctions” on MTN Rwanda “for non-compliance with its licence obligations.”
It explained further in the statement, that “MTN Rwanda Ltd provided services in contravention of Enforcement Notice and Directives issued by the Regulator against hosting its IT services outside the country.”
According to the regulator, by so doing, “MTN Rwanda breached its licence obligation requiring it to comply with all applicable laws, regulations and any other regulatory instruments issued by the competent authority.”
The Rwandan regulator explained further that “On 4th May 2017, the Regulatory Board of RURA conducted a hearing session in which MTN Rwanda Ltd was informed on the breach of its licence obligations and given the opportunity to be heard, whereby MTN Rwanda Ltd admitted the above mentioned breach.
“In accordance with the applicable laws, the Regulatory Board of RURA decided to impose on MTN Rwanda Ltd administrative fine of seven billion thirty million Rwanda Francs (7,030,000,000),” which amounts to $8.5 million.
On May 17, 2017, the MTN Group Corporate Affairs issued a press statement acknowledging the Rwanda fine, stating:
“MTN acknowledges receipt of fine notification from Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority.”
The mobile operator announced:
“MTN Rwanda has received official notification of a fine equivalent to US$ 8.5 million from the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA). The fine relates to non-compliance with the Directives issued by the regulator prohibiting the inclusion of MTN Rwanda in the MTN South and East Africa (SEA) IT hub based in Uganda.
“MTN has been engaging with the regulator on this matter over the past four months. MTN Rwanda is currently studying the official notification and will continue to engage with the regulator on this matter.”
The MTN Group is still reeling from the heavy fine amounting originally to $5.2 billion imposed on its Nigeria operations, the MTN Nigeria, in October 2015, by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
This was later reduced after a lot of water had passed under the bridge, with then Group President/CEO of the company, Mr. Sifiso Dabengwa, having to throw in the towel thus giving way for discussions that later led to more listening ears from the NCC.
The infractions in Nigeria also led to the resignation of the first indigenous CEO of MTN Nigeria, Mr. Michael Ikpoki.
The NCC had invoked section 20(1) of the Telephone Subscribers regulation (TSR) law on MTN, for not meeting the deadline set for Mobile network operators (MNOs) to disconnect Subscribers Identification Modules (SIM) with improper registration.
The compliance audit carried out by the NCC on MTN network revealed unregistered 5.2 million customers’ lines un-deactivated. This led to the NCC fining MTN with the sum of $1000 for each unregistered SIM, which amounted to $5.2 billion.
After the departure of Dabengwa, the Group chose a more diplomatic measure in communicating with the Nigerian authorities, and thus secured a reduction in the fine to $3.2 billion.