SIM card harmonisation ends December 31 ' NCC

The harmonisation of data gathered by different telecommunication operators and agents in the process of Subscriber Identity Management cards will be concluded by the end of the month, the Nigerian Communications Commission has said.Director of Public Affairs, Mr. Tony Ojobo, disclosed this at an interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Thursday.Ojobo, however, said the conclusion of the harmonisation of data from different agents that participated in the exercise would not result in the automatic disconnection of subscribers that had not yet registered their SIM cards.He said, There might be issues that need to be clarified at the end of the harmonisation exercise. It is the issues that are thrown up that would determine what action that is going to be taken by the commission.If the issues are not many, then you will expect that soon after, subscribers that have not yet registered would be cut off from the network. If any registered subscriber needs to clarify anything, they will be given the opportunity to do so.Ojobo added that when the integration of the data was completed and cleaned up, the database would be passed to the National Identity Management Commission, which has the legal responsibility for managing citizens data.In addition to network service providers, NCC had engaged seven contractors at the sum of N6.1bn for the exercise, which began on March 28, 2011.The contractors were SW Global for the South-East regionAnambra, Enugu, Abia, Ebonyi, and Imo; PNN for the North-Central regionAbuja, Plateau, Benue, Niger, Kogi, Kwara and Nassarawa; Chams for Lagos; and JKK for the South-West regionOyo Osun, Ogun, Ekiti and Ondo.Others were DATAGROUPIT for the North-East regionYobe, Borno, Gombe, Bauchi, Adamawa and Taraba; EAGLE/CBC for the North West regionKebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Kano and Jigawa; and E-Kenneth/SageMetrics for the South-SouthCross River, Delta, Edo, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Bayelsa.Although the regulatory agency had said that subscribers that were not registered by the end of the exercise would be disconnected on September 28, it had said a new window was open for subscribers to register.The Federal Government had embarked on the registration of SIM cards in order to contain the perpetration of crimes assisted by mobile phones whose owners could not easily be identified. Such crimes, which had been on the increase included robbery, kidnapping and bombing.
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