The Communications Authority (CA) of Kenya has warned mobile phone subscribers who fail to register their details with their respective telecommunication service providers by April 15 will face disconnection.

Director General Ezra Chiloba stated that the move is to enforce the SIM card registration regulations of 2015 and is aimed at combating cybercrime and fraud in the digital space.

Chiloba said the Communication Authority will not extend the ongoing SIM card registration deadline and urged unregistered mobile subscribers to do so in the remaining days.

He asked all mobile network operators to speed up the data cleanup exercise and said that no more time will be added upon the expiry of the grace period noting that unregistered sim cards have security implications.

“There would be no extension so those still dragging their feet should wake up to the reality and register with their respective telecom service providers or face permanent deactivation,” he said.

The CA DG said there would be no unregistered SIM cards on any of the telcom service providers that would be in operation beyond April 15.

“We want before the end of April all the networks to be cleaned up by deactivating all unregistered and improperly registered SIM cards from the networks,” said Chiloba.

He said Kenya will join other countries in the world that have developed similar policies and collected biometric data through a registration process by telecom companies in a bid to boost cybersecurity.

Chiloba spoke to the media at Pride Inn Paradise Beach Resort and Spa in Mombasa while attending this year’s annual Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) Kenya chapter conference.

ISACA is an international nonprofit professional association focused on information technology governance and engages in the development, adoption and use of globally accepted information systems.

The three days ISACA Kenya chapter annual conference has kicked off in Mombasa organized with the theme ‘Renew and re-imagine, tech, innovation and resilience’.

Chiloba said the mandatory registration comes in the wake of growing incidents of fraud involving mobile phones in the country.

He asked parents not to register their credentials in the SIM cards their children who are above the age of 18 operate.

“This will be an upgrade of the current model in which parents use their credentials to register SIM cards their children operate,” he added.

He said previously data systems in the country remained non-digitised due to poor information and communication infrastructure which is no longer the case at the moment when the digital divide is narrowing.

“It means that criminals and even terrorists can use unregistered SIM cards for anonymity and avoiding detection by the authorities,” he said adding that the registration will help in facilitating crime tracking and prevention by the security agencies.

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Mele Kyari, has corroborated the claim by the Chairman of the United Bank of Africa, Tony Elumelu, that Nigeria is losing 95 per cent of oil production to thieves at Bonny Terminal, Rivers State.

The Chairman of the United Bank of Africa, Tony Elumelu, recently had in a Twitter thread on March 17, said Nigeria was losing 95 per cent of production at the Bonny terminal to vandals making Shell declare force majeure production activities on that field.

“Look at Bonny Terminal that should be receiving 200k barrels per day, instead it received less than 3,000 barrels, leading the operator @shell to declare force majeure,” Elumelu tweeted.

Elumelu’s claim was confirmed on Thursday by Kyari while appearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Upstream).

The GMD told the panel that Nigeria can only get 3,000 barrels out of 239,000 barrels injected into the pipeline from Bonny Terminal.

He further disclosed that the country lost $4 billion to theft at the rate of 200,000 barrels per day in 2021. He added that the country already lost $1.5 billion so far in 2022 because the vandalism has escalated.

“Indeed what is happening is massive acts of vandals and thieves on our pipelines that have first made us lose our volume. Secondly, it forced us to shut down production. The difference between the current production of 1.49 million and our potential that we can easily do -close to 1.8 million or so–at an independent level is not necessarily stolen and they are not within the reach of ordinary vandals. What has been in massive difficulty is the production from the independents and the JV. Unfortunately, except for the ExxonMobil production, most of our JV is onshore. This is where we have the challenge,” he said.

He said the rate of vandalism has forced the NNPC and their Joint Venture partners to shut down two production fields. He stressed that the NNPC had to abandon the lines because removing the breach will not deter the oil vandals from stopping.

He said the situation has become “desperate.”

Speaking on the solution, Kyari said the stealing is beyond ordinary “vandals” because the sophistication required is beyond small-time vandals.

In his PowerPoint presentation, Kyari showed the committee the environmental impact of the activities of the vandals.

He harped on the environmental impact of the activities of vandals, noting that the impact will be felt for generations to come.

He commended the governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, for the actions taken to check illegal refineries.

He asked the committee to give the government two months to implement some of the security measures developed to tackle the activities of vandals in the Niger Delta.

The South African Reserve Bank, in collaboration with the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group, this week released a second report looking at the use of distributed ledger technology for interbank payments settlement, taking it one step closer to a national cryptocurrency.

Project Khokha 2 was launched just over a year ago, in February 2021, and the participating financial institutions were Absa, FirstRand, Nedbank, Standard Bank and the JSE.

While global financial systems have steadily progressed over the last 50 years, moving from physical ledgers to digital ledgers, the next step is tokenisation – where different traditional assets such as money and securities are represented as tokens on distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms. One of the most popular applications associated with DLT platforms is blockchain technology, which houses cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum.

“Several central banks are exploring the viability of tokenised central bank money in financial markets. Such exploration is important given the growth in technological innovation and the use of new forms of payment instructions,” says Lesetja Kganyago, the governor of the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb).

Project Khoka 2 saw the creation of two forms of tokenised money to allow for settlement. The first was a tokenised form.

The Nigerian Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo has inaugurated the reconstituted Enlarged National Focal Point (ENPF) with the mandate to serve as a forum for systematic consultation, and collaboration among relevant Government Ministries, Agencies and the Private Sector, for effective management of trade matters.

During the inauguration of the ENPF chaired by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr Evelyn Ngige, he explained that the objective of the ENPF is to serve as the platform to promote Nigeria’s interests in all trade negotiations through the proper articulation and harmonisation of the country’s negotiation positions.

According to him, “The increase in the number and complexity of trade and trade-related issues in the 21st Century, including the associated sectoral interlinkages, has challenged the ability of both developed and developing countries to manage, negotiate, and implement trade agreements.”

“Indeed, trade policy in today’s world goes well beyond the traditional focus on border measures such as tariffs, trade taxes and charges, export subsidies, customs and transit regimes, quantitative restrictions, and quotas”.

“While the search for new disciplines and commitments is ongoing in many different areas, rules on trade in agriculture, services, investment, intellectual property and product standards have all led to various systemic changes and challenges, since the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995,” the Minister said.

He explained that the ENPF which drew its members from ministries and agencies of government, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, labour

Unions, Nigerian Economic Summit Group amongst others, was necessitated by the enlarged scope of national trade policy agenda.

The minister called on all members of the ENFP to work together, with a view to ensuring that trade, investment and technology policies serve as the core enablers of growth and the sustainable development of the Nigerian economy.