The Communications Minister, Adebayo Shittu, has said that the final decisions on the protracted $3.9 billion fine handed to MTN Nigeria by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) would be taken by President Muhammadu Buhari.
This is just as he said that the country would be “holding talks” with the Johannesburg, South Africa-based company “very soon”.
In a Tuesday chat with Reuters, the communications minister said: “It is (now) for government to meet with them and conclude negotiations.”
The company has already paid $250 million towards a settlement, just as it had last week withdrawn a suit it instituted against the regulatory body, to explore the possibility of an out-of-court settlement.
Recall that the body had initially fined MTN $5.2 billion for failing to deregister 200,000 improperly registered SIM cards, but reduced the fine to $3.9 billion after series of negotiations.