Nigeria’s House of Representatives has delivered some rather stark news to MTN Nigeria in the form of tripling the original $5.1 billion fine to $15.6 billion.

The fine which was issued when MTN Nigeria failed to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered and improperly registered SIM cards was initially in the region of R72.2 billion.

The fine was then reduced to R46.4 billion before it was once again increased to R56 billion.

Today however, Africa Review reports that the Nigerian House of Representatives ruled that the fine issued by the Nigerian Communication Commission was “inadequate” and that the initial reduction of the fine was a flagrant breach of the laws which relate to the matter.

The matter was brought before the House by Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma who pointed out that licensees who fail to capture, register, deregister or transmit the details of any person on its network to a central database would be liable for a penalty of N200 000 (R15 000) per unregistered subscriber.

This would effectively bring the total MTN Nigeria owes the government to an astounding $15.8 billion (R241 billion).

The matter also brought to light the fact that MTN’s “good faith” payment of $250 billion toward the fine was not in order, with Mr. Agbonayinma saying the NCC should have been a part of the negotiations surrounding the payment.

We have reached out to MTN for comment and will update this story with its response accordingly.

[Via – Africa Review]