TANZANIA TO BLOCK OVER 20 MILLION SIM CARDS

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.