Minister for Works, Transport and Communication, Isack Kamwelwe
Dar es Salaam — The government yesterday said it will not extend the December 31 deadline for the registration of Sim cards.
Minister for Works,
Transport and Communication, Isack Kamwelwe said this on the sidelines
of a meeting on Pan African Coastal Union (PAPU).
He said this barely
a few days after Airtel Tanzania threw its subscribers into confusion
after those who are yet to be registered biometrically failed to place
calls.
The subscribers,
however, were able to send and receive messages, transact through Mobile
Money, something they say was an inconvenienceqor them.
A section of the
customers reported that they received sms on Wednesday informing them
that they would be switched off on Thursday because they were not
biometrically registered.
The telcom's action comes before the December 31 official deadline put by Tanzania Communication and Regulatory authority.
In response to a
question on the matter, Kamwelwe said the Airtel incident was aimed to
wake up Tanzanians to understand the importance of registering their
simcards.
Stressing that all unregistered lines will be switched off on December 31.
"We are doing this to protect Tanzanians, there are people owning more than 30 sim lines to defraid fellow Tanzanians," he said.
Airtel's call
center admitted that they had blocked the Sim cards and had sent
messages to subscribers who are yet to register indicating they had
suspended the services, saying that they were, however,
trying to rectify the anomaly.
Figures released on
December 13, 2019, by the Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority
(TCRA), show that more than 50 per cent (7,185,528) of Airtel Tanzania's
subscribers are yet to register biometrically.
TCRA has, however,
assured the public that the law has not mandated service providers to
switch off Sim cards without the regulator's nod.
TCRA spokesperson,
Semu Mwakiyanjala, said this when responding to The Citizen's query
after a section of the public complained of not being able to place
calls.
In response, he
said it was imperative that those affected communicate with the service
provider because it could be a technical hitch related to the broadband
backbone grid.
"If the people are
not receiving network they should communicate with the relevant company
to know the problem before reaching any conclusions," he said.
Recently TCRA
reported that with only 18 days left before the end of the biometric
registration of SIM cards, only 42 per cent SIM cards in operation had
been register.
The reported that
there are 21.7 million SIM cards that are yet registered out of over 47
million SIM cards, calling on public to use the remaining days to
register their SIM cards.
Out of the seven
telecom providers none is yet to reach 50 per cent registration
therefore standing a risk of losing out on transactions with Vodacom
Tanzania having the biggest number.
The unregistered
SIM cards are as follows: Airtel Tanzania (7,185,528), Tigo (6,618,
007), Smile (13,333),( TTCL 825,406), Viattel (3,012,237), Vodacom
(9,154,114) and Zantel (573,891)
TCRA Director
General James Kilaba said the biometric registration are very open
including maintain security and to protect the users with misuse of
mobile phones.
"This exercise
started in May, hopeful people were aware so on December 31 it will the
last day for people to use SIM cards which have not been registered
biometrically. So I strongly urge Tanzanians to use these remaining
days," he said
No comments :
Post a Comment