By Prince Osuagwu & Laide Akinboade
Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, yesterday, insisted that the four telecommunications operators, Globacom, MTN, Airtel and Etisalat it earlier sanctioned for poor service delivery must not only pay the N1.17 billion fine, but also the additional N2.5 million daily fine, respectively, for not meeting the payment deadline.

The Commission made its decision known to newsmen in Abuja, yesterday, saying that the additional N2.5 million daily fine for non-compliance had already started counting from Friday.

Vanguard gathered that before NCC’s decision, the meeting which the regulator had with top executive officers of the four sanctioned telecoms operators, who allegedly requested for a downward review of the fines, was deadlocked.

Addressing journalists after the meeting yesterday, NCC’s director of public affairs, Mr. Tony Ojobo, said the operators wanted NCC to review the sanctions but, “we refused, insisting that they must pay.

The commission would not enter into any further meeting with the operators until they pay the fines and the default penalty.”

He also warned that the N1.17 billion fines and the default penalty must be paid to NCC coffers and not to consumers, because it was not compensation.

He invoked the portion of NCC Act, which states that fines are paid to NCC while compensations are paid to consumers.

The regulator had on May 11 slammed MTN Nigeria and Etisalat Nigeria with a penalty of N360 million fines each, while Airtel Nigeria and Globacom, Nigeria’s Second National Operator, SNO, also got N270 million, and N180 million fine, respectively.

However, at the close of work on Friday May 25, when the deadline for payment elapsed, the mobile phone companies were yet to pay the fines, which attracted a fresh round of punitive fines pegged at N2.5 million per day for defaulting.

NCC has, however, said that failing to pay up on Friday meant that the defaulting fines immediately began to count in addition to the main penalty.

INEC restructures

By Okey Ndiribe

ABUJA—Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, would undergo further restructuring and reorganisation as part of its preparations to conduct a free, fair and generally acceptable general election in 2015.

This was disclosed, yesterday, by the Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, while receiving the Senate Committee on INEC which visited the headquarters of the Commission as part of its oversight assignment.

Jega further stated that the Commission would also propose additional reforms of the legal framework which guides the operations of the electoral body to enable it realise its objective of responding to the yearnings of Nigerians for the conduct of credible elections, adding that the commission had already embarked on the production of permanent voters’ cards for the same purpose.

He further stated that the commission was committed to the prosecution of electoral offenders in all future elections in 2015 to serve as deterrence to others.

He said since the current Board of the Commission was inaugurated barely two years ago, it had been preoccupied with programmes and projects aimed at conducting credible elections in the country.

Jega further stated that part of what the electoral body did to ensure that the 2011 general election was credible was to sponsor amendments of the Constitution and the Electoral Act to achieve the goal of credible election.

He cited the conduct of a biometric voters’ registration early last year as one of the measures the Commission undertook to achieve improved service delivery by the electoral body.