Sim registration marred by flaws

Although Mr Vincent Kawooya, a shop attendant, provided his particulars to his telecom service provider as required for the
ongoing SIM card registration last year, he never received any response to confirm whether his SIM had been registered
until last week when he discovered that he is still an unregistered user. Mr Kawooya says this has demoralised him and he
is still contemplating whether to register again or not.

Ms Grace Natabaalo is also distressed after she found out that a mobile phone number she has had for about eight years was
registered under a different person’s name. Ms Natabaalo, who says has been too busy to register her card in the past
months, walked to a nearby MTN registration centre last week, only to be told that the number she wanted to register had
already been registered under a one Opio James and she was asked to contact the head office for guidance. However, Mr VG Mr Somasekhar, the Airtel managing director, told the Daily Monitor yesterday that they only register subscribers whose
details fully meet the stipulated criteria.

“Some people submit registration forms with missing photograph or identification cards and by law, we can’t register them.
We, however, ask them to provide the missing information or documents,” Mr Somasekhar said. He also added that it takes between 8 to 10 days for a form submitted to an agent to reach the head office and have the
information entered into the data base.

Ms Justine Ntabgoba, the MTN Corporate Affairs manager, also said some registration forms take long to get to the head
office and by the time of the query, the data is not yet uploaded on the database. She, however, said the telecom is
working hard to ensure that the databases are up to date.