The communications authority of Kenya (CA) has extended the sim card registration exercise whose deadline was today by six months.
According to the CA, operators who will have failed to meet set targets by 15th October 2022 will be fined while users who will still be unregistered will also be fined.
“The regulations state that proper SIM card registration includes a photo ID, and since 2017 we have asked mobile service providers to comply, but they have not,” said the regulator.
The directive also affects individuals who have purchased multiple SIM cards but are yet to register all of them using their photo IDs.
The extension also followed extensive consultations between CA and the Mobile Network Operators (MNO).
CA’s Director-General, Ezra Chiloba, and the MNOs held a meeting on Thursday, April 14 to assess the success rate of the exercise.
Deputy President William Ruto has called for an extension of the ongoing SIM card registration until December 2022.
In his plea to the authority, Ruto asked them to be “humane” and stop Kenyans from queuing. “Kenyans are queuing everywhere, it is not necessary for them to queue for a SIM card for them to be registered, we have enough time. What is this magic about Friday?” he posed.
The Authority has clarified that the ongoing exercise has nothing to do with elections and that the validation exercise is targeting subscribers who are not duly registered and has nothing to do with elections.
