Comprehensive SIM Card Registration To Gulp N6.1bn

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is to spend about N6.1 billion on the first phase of its comprehensive SIM card registration nationwide. 

Presenting the budget of the Commission before the House of Representatives Committee on Communications, the acting Vice President of NCC, Dr Bashir Gwandu, said it would capture the existing 70 million subscribers in all the networks in the first phase.

Gwandu said that due to the comprehensive aspect of the exercise, it would cost the commission N120 each to register the first 50 million subscribers.

He explained that the registration being planned would be a central data base that would capture the photograph, forensic finger print of an individual and serve as multipurpose.

Gwandu said once the budget was passed by the National Assembly, the commission would kick start the process, as all stakeholders had been fully mobilised for the exercise.

“SIM card registration project is meant to register all prepaid card subscribers in Nigeria in order to curb incidences of crime being committed through the use of prepaid cards,’’ he said.

Gwandu said the absence of subscriber-identification facility had far reaching security implications and was exploited by unscrupulous individuals to perpetrate crime and other illegal activities in the country.

He said NCC would partner with private sector solution providers in Private Public Partnership (PPP) arrangement to develop and deploy a secure, reliable, widely accepted and continuous SIM Card registration system.

He explained that the operators registration of sim card which commenced since May 1, was different from NCC’s wholesale registration as stipulated by the Act setting it up.

Gwandu said the commission intended to also use N300 million towards registration of handsets against phone theft and spend N500 million on ICT training programmes for youths in conjunction with the Ministry of Labour.

The  NCC said it was projecting  a revenue of N42.6 billion for 2010 out of which N9.7 billion would be recurrent expenditure while N23.8 billion is set aside for capital projects.

Gwandu added that the sum of N13.1 billion would be expended on Special Projects while N8.3 billion would be transferred to the Universal Service Provision Fund as against N14.8 billion that would be transferred to the Federal Government.

Earlier, Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Dave Salako said it was agreed that the registration should commence and end within six months of the passage of 2010 budget, so that Nigerians would enjoy the facility.

Salako said the registration of all sim by the regulators would go a long way to solve the security problems in the country especially the recent incessant kidnapping and robbery.

He expressed the opinion that the registration would equally solve the problems of statistics and correct data base for effective planning following the failure of national identity card projects.

Salako (PDP-Ogun), however, cautioned the commission to be prudent with its budget and ensure quick implementation of all its capital projects, to ensure even distribution of the facilities in the country.