The Federal Government has disclosed that MTN had paid N80 billion of the N330 billion fine imposed on it for failing to deactivate more than five million unregistered SIM cards.

The Minister of Communications, Mr Adebayo Shittu, said that the company paid the sum for the first year thus remaining N250 billion.

Recall that MTN was initially fined 5.2 billion dollars (N1.04 trillion) for failing to deactivate more than five million unregistered SIM cards but was later reduced to N330 billion.

According to the minister, the country would achieve the 30 per cent national broadband penetration by 2018 as projected in the country’s National Broadband Plan.

“For the first year, they paid N80 billion, after paying the initial N50 billion, and they will have to pay for three years until they will complete the N330 billion.

“MTN does not have a choice, when the law was made, it said for every unregistered SIM card in use, the fine is N200,000, the law never anticipated that one company will be in violation to the tune of millions of lines.

“It was inconceivable, so when the thing was added 200,000 times 5.2 million lines, it came to a trillion plus”, he said.