Senate summons ministers, Emefiele, others over MTN fine

Nigeria’s Senate has accused the government of “short-changing” the country by reducing the fine of mobile phone giant MTN from an original $5.2bn to $1.7bn.

The Senate had summoned top government officials, to explain what it describes as the “ridiculous settlement payment plan of the fine imposed on MTN Nigeria by the Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC).

The NCC had directed all telecom providers in the country to register subscribers and disconnect erring subscribers. MTN did not meet the deadline to do so.

The committee has therefore, summoned all the parties involved to appear before it on Thursday to explain their role in the deal.

Those summoned by the committee include: Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu; Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Professor Umar Dambatta; Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of MTN and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.

They are to appear before the committee on June 23 to explain the rationale behind the deal.

The Chairman of the committee, Senator Gilbert Nnaji, also noted with regret that the sanction, which was originally N1.04tn, was initially reduced to N780bn before the final resolution at N330bn.

Nnaji, in the letter dated June 15, 2016, said the entire transaction was fraught with suspected criminal tendencies as it was allegedly perfected in secrecy.

The committee specifically asked “the governor of CBN as the custodian of the CBN Recovery Account into which the initial N50 billion was lodged and as a principal player in the whole process,” to present to the committee, the current position of the recovery account.

MTN was handed a $5.2 billion fine in October, prompting five weeks of lobbying that led to the penalty being reduced by 25 percent in December last year.

The telecommunication firm had filed a suit after the Nigerian telecommunications regulator, Nigeria’s Communication Commission (NCC) imposed a $3.9 billion fine for failing to disconnect users with unregistered SIM cards.

NCC had said all telecom firms except MTN had complied with the directive which was first issued in August, when it warned of a fine of 200,000 naira ($1,005) per SIM card.

MTN failed to disconnect 5.1 million subscribers in August and September, the NCC said.

The fine amounts to more than the past two years of MTN profits and is about a third Nigeria’s 2015 budget.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Communications, Shittu, said the reduction fine earlier imposed on MTN was in the interest of the investment drive agenda of the federal government.