In a communiqué, the South Africa telecommunications group MTN announced the extension of this telecom licence by the Nigeria Communications Commission for an additional five years. The new telecommunications operating licence of MTN will now expire in 2021. The telecom company paid USD 94.2 million for this extension which comes in a particular situation.

Indeed, MTN Nigeria is carrying a heavy fine of USD 5.2 billion for not having deactivated over 5 million unidentified SIM cards on its network, in compliance with the directives on the identification of mobile subscribers issued by the telecom regulatory authority and the security services of Nigeria.

If this amount is fully paid, this could put the group in a very bad financial situation according to rating agencies Moody, Fitch and Standard and Poor who have even downgraded the perspective of the rating of the MTN group from stable to negative.

Sifiso Dabengwa (photo), the CEO of the group arrived in Nigeria on 3 November 2015 to negotiate a reduction of this fine with the authorities. British radio BBC indicated that the MTN group is having negotiations with the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Interior Security Agency. These talks first started with the regulatory telecom authority. But the latter remained firm on the amount to be paid by the operator, giving them a period of two weeks to settle the amount.