By Agboola Bayo
Ibadan
Minister of Communications, Barrister Adebayo Shittu yesterday said the N50 billion fine paid by the MTN was not a concessionaire fee but part of the actual fine the company is supposed to pay to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The minister stated this in Ibadan while speaking as the Guest of Honour at a roundtable programme organised by the Oyo state wing of the League of Veteran
Journalists held at the Oyo NUJ,Press centre,Iyaganku.
According to him, MTN had earlier admitted that it failed to register no fewer than 5.2 million lines out of the 22 million lines on its network, apologised and confessed to the offence and asked for a review of the fine by the regulatory body.
The minister pointed out that the actual fine would be paid by the MTN after the House of Representatives conclude its investigation on the matter, saying, the money paid to the NCC was not the actual fine it was supposed to pay.
Barrister Shittu stressed that the federal government will continue to sanction any erring company that fails to register its subscribers as the failure of those companies to fully register their subscribers has made several criminal activities such as kidnapping of the former Secretary to the federal government, Chief Olu Falae and other prominent Nigerians easy because the lines used to communicate the families were not traceable to any individual thereby causing lot of damages to the country more than the actual fine.
