House of Rep Direct Telecom to stop Reselling purchased SIM Cards

The House of Representatives has passed a resolution, directing its Committee on Telecommunications (once constituted) to engage with Global System for Communication (GSM) providers, urging them to discontinue the practice of reselling already purchased SIM cards.

This decision was made during the plenary session yesterday after Boniface Sunday Emerengwa presented a motion on the matter, where he noted that GSM services were introduced in Nigeria in 2001, with Econet (now Airtel) and MTN being the first providers.

He said: “The advent of GSM enables Nigerians to have access to a variety of different services that were never possible or contemplated in the past such as Mobile Banking Services, etc.

“GSM has helped tremendously to improve the business environment in Nigeria, thereby providing ease of doing business in the country.

“SIM registration began in April 2010 upon directives from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to track subscribers in the possible event of an abuse of usage.

“The SIM registration entails the personal information and submission of individual biometric scans which are retained in the SIM by the Provider.

“The SIM cards paid for by individuals but not in use for six months are resold to another subscriber.

After the registration of a fresh subscriber of a pre, registered SIM, the details of the earlier subscriber still show when exposed to True Caller App, Regrets that bank alerts of old subscribers are sent to the new subscriber and vice-versa, thereby exposing customers to huge financial risk; particularly under the growing regime of ‘yahoo boys’ etc”.

Adopting the motion, the House gave the committee two weeks to execute the assignment and report back for further legislative action.