As recently happened – more than once – in Nigeria, the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) has extended SIM card registration in the country beyond last week's deadline.
Kenyans now have another six months to meet registraton requirements – until 15 October in fact.
According to the Capital News website, this extension follows a meeting between CA director-general Ezra Chiloba and CEOs of mobile operators. This resulted in an agreement to extend the exercise to allow for 100 percent compliance, although this time the CA plans undertake monthly reviews to assess progress. This will be followed by a compliance audit on each of the operators after six months.
Any case of non-compliance with the SIM Card Registration Regulations 2015 by either the operators or subscribers will attract legal penalties.
Currently, according to CA, Safaricom has reported 67 per cent compliance and Airtel Kenya 55 per cent. Telkom Kenya is only at 33 per cent.
The extension will come as a relief to many Kenyans who had been rushing to registration areas to beat the deadline which, until now, was last Friday.
After what appears to have been a long delay, Safaricom on Friday rolled out an online self-registration platform to allow its subscribers to validate their details, something Airtel and Telkom have apparently already done.
There has been a lot of pressure on the Communication Authority to extend the registration exercise, including, reportedly, a request from deputy president William Ruto.
