The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA), says close to one million subscribed sim cards in Rwanda have not been registered and risk being switched –off come July 21st 2013.
RURA set a six-month registration exercise period which started in February, and all mobile users had to register their sim cards.
According to the RURA head of communication and media regulation Jean Baptist Mutabazi, about 85% of the six million mobile phone subscribers had registered their SIM cards by Tuesday.
Statistics from RURA show that MTN, with 3,522,555 subscribers has already registered 2,929,486; Tigo has registered 1,665,767 of its 1,876,506 subscribers, while 746,874 of the 873,631 Airtel users have registered.
The registration exercise is as a result of the EAC resolutions where all countries agreed to implement the Sim Card Registration (SCR), which is related to the security of mobile subscribers. It is intended to fight mobile-based crimes in the region.
More benefits that come with registration include easy SIM swap as well as mobile transactions because people’s credentials will be on file. Tracking phone theft will also be easier.
The other EAC countries that have implemented the SCR so far are Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda.