The N6.2 billion SIM card registration project embarked upon by the Nigerian Communica-tions Commission (NCC) is failing, THISDAY can report today.
Industry sources told THISDAY at the yesterday that although the NCC insists that any subscriber who has registered with it need not register with individual networks, there is a serious problem of synchronisation and integration of the data of registered subscribers.
Because of this problem, the networks, which do not have access to NCC’s data base, are unable to pass their data to the regulator “owing to incompatible formats”.
This raises serious questions as to the homework done by NCC and the networks before the exercise commenced more than a year ago.
It was also gathered that some of the networks have lost the captured data of subscribers, leading to fresh registration.
These hitches have led to an unending registration exercise, with deadline being shifted twice. Currently, there is no known deadline again.
This is impacting negatively on the stated objective of the exercise – which is to check criminal activities perpetrated through phones.
The House of Representatives is currently probing the N6.2 billion project which was awarded controversially under the leadership of Mr. Ernest Ndukwe as Executive Vice-Chairman of the NCC.
The indefinite extension of the registration by the NCC appears to be creating confusion between the consultants hired by NCC and the telecoms operators.
Both parties are unable to check multiple registrations because of the data synchronisation hitches.
THISDAY investigation revealed that some subscribers that had earlier registered with telecoms operators, embarked on a second and third registration exercise with the same operator in different locations, without the system identifying them.
It was further revealed that the NCC consultants were compelling subscribers to register with them, irrespective of their earlier registration with the telecoms operators.
