Rwanda Clarifes New Regulations Regarding SIM card Ownership

Rwanda’s telecommunications regulatory body, Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA), issued a new directive regarding SIM card use recently.

They said that in accordance to a law governing SIM card registration in the country, every subscriber can only register a maximum of three SIM cards per national ID per operator. This also applies to foreigners who have work permits or have refugee cards provided by the Rwandese government. However, this does not apply to regular visitors or non-Rwandans. This group of people can only register one SIM card per operator.

RURA also talked about SIM cards limitation on other types of groups. Corporate institutions will have to declare all SIM cards registered under their institutions to telcom operators with a copy to the regulator and if they were registered on their employees’ ID, that will apply for that employee.

Also, subscribers that use their SIM cards to generate revenue will have to be facilitated by telcom operators with the regulators approval. in addition, subscribers who might have many devices requiring SIM cards, they will be facilitated by telcom operators with the regulators approval.

The regulator also advised subscribers to check the numbers registered under their IDs and de-register those extra SIMs that are unknown or inactive so as to be within the set limit.

RURA says that the deadline for compliance to these rules is 31st January 2019 and the measures are being taken to curb fraud cases or other illegal activities surrounding usage of SIM cards.