Telecom subscribers affected by ongoing SIM card disconnections have been given a 90-day ultimatum to regularize their registration or forfeit them.

Rebecca Mukite, Uganda Communications Commission head of Public and International Relations, said on Saturday that the unclaimed lines will be reallocated to other people.

She was speaking at a local radio station in Kampala.

"At the end of the 90 days, they (SIM cards) will be sent to the pool so they can be allocated to other users. However, this process is not affecting mobile money on those lines.

"You can still get that money off,  you can pay a bill and transact although you cannot add money onto that line," she said.

Regarding mobile money, she added that the Bank of Uganda has provisions to enable people who will have lost their lines completely to get their money back.

"So, nobody is going to lose their mobile money, " she noted.

UCC started a mass disconnection of SIM cards on November 12, 2023.

This initiative is in strict compliance with the regulations outlined in the Interception of Communications Act.

SIM card regularization requires registered owners to physically visit their respective telecom providers with their original national identity cards for a thorough screening and verification process.

According to data from the UCC, Uganda has more than 30 million registered SIM cards, but approximately 2 percent of them are classified as non-regularized.

The regularization process aligns with Section 9 of the Regulations of the Interception of Communications Act, which mandates telecommunication service providers to collect comprehensive customer information, including personal and business details, before offering services to individuals or entities, and to maintain records.

These regulations also require that each active SIM card must be associated with a National Identification Card, with a limit of no more than 10 SIM cards from the same telecom company per cardholder.