08 November 2019

Gambia’s regulator, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) has fined three mobile phone operators for failing to adhere to SIM card registration law.

Africell, Gamcel, and Qcell have all been fined a total of US$115,000 for selling SIM cards activated at the point of sale to subscribers without registering their identity as well as addresses and other details.

They were charged US$595 for each SIM card sold.

In a statement, PURA said Africell was fined a total of US$110,700 because it sold the most SIM cards (186), while Qcell and Gamcel sold fewer.

“We embarked on SIM cards registration monitoring exercise for all operators countrywide,” said Ya AmieTouray, legal, licensing and enforcement manager at PURA. “We bought SIM cards without following or going through the due process of registering our identity cards.”

Touray added that it was not the first time Africell and Gamcel had defaulted and been fined, and there “was no change in the behaviour” of the operators.