By Our Correspondent,
Dar es Salaam TANZANIA
The Tanzania
Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) has ruled out possibility of
extending today’s deadline for biometric registration of mobile phone numbers,
saying over 20 million lines will be switched off.
Hundreds of mobile phone owners thronged biometric registration centre in Iringa region in efforts to save their lines from switch off. |
The Principal Communications Officer for TCRA, Semu
Mwakyanjala told reporters yesterday that 27,287,091 lines had been registered
biometrically by Wednesday last week that is 56% of 48, 717, 967 subscribed
mobile phones.
This means 21,430,876 lines (44%) were yet to be
registered biometrically, hence face the blockage as TCRA proceeds to switch
off unregistered numbers today.
“There is no change of plan; mobile phone lines
that have not been registered biometrically will be switched off,” he said.
This came as thousands of mobile phone owners
yesterday thronged biometric registration centres in various parts of the
country in last ditch efforts to save their lines from switch off.
A sea of people gathered at an expansive open space
from early morning until late in the evening as more people came than those who
left, making the long queues perpetual.
Some mobile phone owners who had not yet registered
their cards biometrically and had no hope of doing so yesterday made desperate
calls for authorities to extend the registration period as millions of lines
are expected to go off air.
A spot check in various parts of the country found
gloom on the faces of owners facing the prospect of not having crucial
communications beginning today and whose only hope is announcement of yet
another extension period which TCRA ruled out.
In a statement released last week, TCRA said that
victims of the imminent mass switch off of SIM cards will have an opportunity
to retrieve their numbers after either getting a national identity card or just
ID number from NIDA.
The notice did not however state a time limit in
which a number previously used by a subscriber can be conserved before being
declared vacant and assigned to another user by the respective service
provider.
Early last month President Magufuli announced an
extension of the registration deadline to January 20. Earlier, the president
had set out until the end of the year for the biometric registration exercise
which was instructed to take place from May 1 to September 30 and proved a
failure, so the president pushed it to the end of the year before adding
another 20 days, but crowds still simmer in registration offices.
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