With less than a week remaining for people to register under the Telephone Services Decree, two of the major operators said they will not be able to register all their customers in time.
The deadline for registration ends next Wednesday and Vodafone Fiji and Telecom Fiji Limited are racing against time to ensure their customer’s lines are not terminated.
Vodafone Manager Corporate Affairs Shalendra Prasad said they are behind target at this stage and may have to terminate services of unregistered customers as per the decree.
However, according to Prasad they will retain the terminated numbers and continue registration even after the deadline expires.
TFL Marketing Manager Vanessa Kilner also said they will not be able to register all their customers by next Wednesday and customers may have to be disconnected.
However, TFL also said they will continue with the registration even after the deadline as they cannot afford to see customers losing out on services.
Under the Telephone Services Decree, there is a mandatory requirement for all landline and mobile phones to be registered failing which the lines are to be terminated.
Under the decree, any person who breaches the decree shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a maximum fine of $10,000 or imprisonment of six months.
Any service provider which fails to cancel the service within two weeks shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to a maximum fine of $200,000.
One extension was already granted last month when the operators could not meet the deadline and Minister for Communication Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum earlier stressed that there will be no further extensions.
Digicel is yet to comment while the Attorney General and Minister for Communication Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is on his way Geneva and could not be reached for a comment.
Story by: Roneel Lal
