At least 300,000 MTN Uganda subscribers have been disconnected for failing to register their sim-cards.
Mr Brian Gouldie, the chief executive officer MTN Uganda, confirmed to journalists on Wednesday that the subscribers had not taken part in the sim-card registration process.
However, the numbers of sim-cards that could be deregistered could be in millions.
Mr Gouldie said: “We have deactivated 300,000 sim-cards, which had not been registered. We have at least 11.4 million subscribers that are both partially and fully registered.”
Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) in October gave telecom companies up to November 30, to have switched off unregistered sim-cards in order to avoid being fined.
This is the second deadline UCC is issuing to telecom companies after the famously touted sim-card registration closed on September 30, 2013 – after several extensions.
At the time, a directive was issued that un-registered sim-cards be switched off but that didn’t happen.
MTN’s largest problem is a section of users it has called “partially registered”.
According to Mr Gouldie, these are people who are yet to complete the registration process but have their documents with MTN.
MTN has been negotiating with UCC to allow a further extension, however, the regulator is having none of this, insisting on the November 30, deadline.
