The number of people seeking sim card validation in Kampala has significantly fallen at major telecommunication service centres within the city.
This follows an extension in the deadline to deactivate unverified multiple sim cards to May 15. Initially, Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) had indicated that the cards would be deactivated on May 1st.
Telecommunication giant MTN describes the process as profile modification while Airtel is calling it sim card validation. The process involves filling new sim cards registration forms using the national identity cards.
Martin Kimera, a mobile money operator in Kamwokya says he went to validate lines at Acacia Mall MTN service center. He says he was made to fill two forms before his thumbprint was scanned and photograph taken for fresh sim card registration.
Shortly after finishing his registration, MTN sent Kimera a short message saying his profile modification was successful. The company then rewarded him with 30 minutes of call time, 100 SMS'es and 100 MBs of data valid for 7 days. He was however asked to activate the bonus gifts by first loading Shs 500 airtime on his number.
At Acacia Mall service center, some clients got turned away due to failures to retrieve their thumbprints from the national identification database of the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA). They were asked to contact NIRA to have errors on their registration corrected.
Samuel Okiror, also a resident of Kamwokya was one of those unlucky ones. He says after several trials, MTN staff could not find his thumbprints in the NIRA database. Staff of the telecommunication company declined to comment on the anomalies and the performance of the program. They said the company public relations officer Val Okecho was in a better position to speak with journalists.
At Airtel’s Ben Kiwanuka service center on Entebbe Road, long queues formed as customers scrambled to have their profiles modified.
Sarah Nalwoga, one of the customers said she found brokers who asked her to pay Shs 5,000 to have her cards validated. She said she went to the service centre to understand what prompted the fresh registration.
A source within the Airtel who spoke on condition of anonymity told URN that the profile modification was prompted by security need to switch off idle cards. He said UCC realized that some national identity cards have multiple sim cards attached to their national identification numbers (NINs) without their knowledge.