Financial Mail and Business Day

MTN Ghana cuts off customers

Mudiwa Gavaza gavazam@businesslive.co.za

MTN Ghana has begun deactivating about a quarter of its customers to comply with a directive from the West African country’s regulators on biometric registration. About 5.7-million customers will have their SIM cards deactivated because they failed to complete the registration process tying them to an identification card.

MTN Ghana has begun deactivating about a quarter of its customers to comply with a directive from the West African country’s regulators on biometric registration.

Last week, Ghana’s National Communications Authority (NCA) said that operators such as MTN would have to deactivate SIM cards for which only the first stage had been completed of a registration process tying them to an identification card. The second phase of the process, which concerns biometric capture, had not been completed for the offending SIMs.

The regulator followed through with its threat, instructing telecom operators “to deactivate all services to those customers who had not completed both stages of the subscriber registration process” by November 30, said MTN.

In Ghana, MTN has about 22.1-million subscribers who have completed the first-stage registration, with 16.4-million having completed the biometric capture. As a result, 5.7-million customers will have their mobile services deactivated within three days from December 1, as part of the directive.

Africa’s largest mobile operator said the affected subscribers represent about 3%-4% of MTN Ghana’s service revenue on an annualised basis and less than 1% of MTN Group service revenue. This is probably part of the reason for the apparent calm in the market, with MTN’s share price closing virtually unchanged at R131.98 on Friday. The prospect of cutting customers off in Nigeria earlier in the year caused a sell-off in MTN shares on the JSE.

The company said it “remains committed to supporting the government of Ghana’s efforts to driving subscriber registrations and has implemented initiatives to accelerate the process”.

It includes increased campaigns and visibility on various platforms and channels, offering incentives for registration, adding new channels through which customers are able to register, including mobile registration units in remote areas and enhancing customer education.

MTN has in recent years been making an effort to comply with regulations in its operating countries to avoid skirmishes and possible fines that it and pay-TV operator MultiChoice have had to deal with in Nigeria.

The group infamously faced a $5bn fine by Nigerian authorities over SIM registrations in 2015. The matter was eventually settled for a lower amount, but caused months of volatility in the company’s share price.

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2022-12-05T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-05T08:00:00.0000000Z

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