CA extends SIM card registration to October 15th

Some Kenyans were scrambling to meet the April 15th deadline set

• CA has extended the deadline by 6 months after massive queues.
• CA is trying to fight crime and improve data accuracy with the SIM registration drive.

speaking to the media
Ezra Chiloba speaking to the media
Image: The-Star

Communications Authority of Kenya has extended the SIM card registration deadline by 6 months to October 15th.

The Authority headed by Ezra Chiloba also said that mobile operators that didn't meet their targets would be penalised. Kenyans who wouldn't have registered by the October date would be fined, the authority added.

This comes at a time when some Kenyans were scrambling to beat the registration deadline that was set for today.

In other related news, Safaricom, the largest Telco in the country, finally rolled out an online registration of SIM cards.

This is after an uproar from Kenyans on social media, who told the company to follow in the footsteps of Telkom who had rolled out the online Sim Card registration.

In recent days, long queues were witnessed in a number of registration centres across the country ahead of the deadline. 

Unregistered Sim cards in Kenya would have been deactivated as the government stepped up the fight against crime and to improve data accuracy. 

This is the third time in a decade the regulator is coming up with a deadline to switch off the SIM cards after a similar attempt in 2012 and 2018.

According to the authority, mobile operators and subscribers have had enough time to conduct the cleanup exercise as per their request in 2018.

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