The Nigerian Communications Commission has revealed that there was an error in the reduced fine given to South African telecommunications giant, MTN.
The NCC handed the mobile phone company a $5.2 billion (N1.04 trillion) penalty in October after failing to cut off users with unregistered SIM cards from its network.
But after series of negotiations, on Thursday, December 3, MTN, said the Nigerian Federal Government had slashed the $5.2 billion (N1.04 trillion) fine to $3.4 billion (N647bn).
Hence, the media had yesterday reported a 35 per cent reduction in the N1.04 trillion fine, amounting to N647 billion, according to the letter MTN claimed to have received from NCC on December 2.
But on Friday, December 4, NCC Director of Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo, said the fine of N1.04tn imposed on the MTN Group was reduced by 25 per cent, and not 35 per cent as initially stated.
The telecommunications company will now have to pay N780bn and not N647bn, as previously stated and widely reported.
Ojobo admitted that there was an error in the initial letter it sent to MTN, saying the Presidency only agreed to slash a quarter of the fine, due to diplomatic intervention.
He said: “When the error was discovered, we had to quickly communicate MTN about the error.”
“There was an error, which has been communicated to MTN. It was not 35 per cent but 25 per cent, which was what the Presidency approved. MTN was not single-handedly marked out for punishment. They faulted where others did not. It was a carrot and stick approach. The carrot was the 25 per cent slash and stick was the sanction.”
Executive Chairman of MTN, Phutuma Nhleko, also confirmed the error by the Nigeria government, stating that on December 3, the day after receiving the first letter, the NCC sent another letter.
“The second letter, which was stated to supersede the first letter, informed the company that the fine had actually been reduced by 25 per cent to N780 billion and not by 35 per cent to N674 billion, as was stated in the first letter. The payment date remained December 31,” Nhleko said.
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