UCC sets one-week deadline for fresh SIM verification

Apr 11, 2017

To facilitate the verification exercise, citizens will use national IDs, while foreigners will be required to present passports

UCC executive director Godfrey Mutabazi addressing the media at the commission's offices in Bugolobi while Inspector General of Police Gen. Kale Kayihura (R) looks on. Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda

Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has set a one-week deadline for fresh SIM card verification for all Ugandans, foreigners and refugees.

"All existing subscribers should present their National identity cards to their operators for verification within seven days," UCC executive director Eng. Godfrey Mutabazi said.

Speaking during a joint press conference with Gen. Kale Kayihura, the Inspector General of Police, Mutabazi today afternoon said to facilitate the verification exercise, citizens will use national IDs, while foreigners will be required to present passports.

Refugees' migration data files at the Office of the Prime Minister, will also be used to verify SIM cards for refugees.

Mutabazi said that telecom operators have agreed to send to the regulator, names of gazzeted places and lists of authorized operators to enable the verification process take shape within the one-week deadline.

"We agreed that all operators should submit lists of authorised SIM card vendors across the country to enable enforcement," he said.

The above new SIM card registration and verification guidelines, which Mutabazi said, telecom operators have agreed to implement, have been issued following a closed-door meeting between UCC, Kayihura and telecom operators in the country, convened today at the regulator's headquarters at Bugolobi.

The meeting was summoned by UCC for stakeholders to find a lasting solution to the continued presence of unregistered SIM cards in the country.

The new guidelines have come at the backdrop of a UCC directive that all telecom operators should deactivate unregistered SIM cards.

However, despite the directive, the SIM cards continue to be sold by vendors in various parts of the country, a move Government wants to curtail.

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