The Senate accused the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General over MTN N50 billion fine

Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami,has been accused by the Senate of having ulterior motive in the payment of N50 billion by MTN,
as part of fine imposed on it by the Federal Government for failure to deactivate 5.2 million unregistered subscribers on its network. The red chamber queried the intentions of the Attorney-General in unilaterally opening a special new account with a name that had no correlations with the issue at hand and then ordering MTN to credit same, despite the existence of Treasury Single Account, TSA. To this end, the Senate, through its Committee on Communications, has vowed to launch immediate probe into the matter, with a view to unraveling all those behind the act and their intentions. Speaking,yesterday, in Abuja, the committee’s chairman, Senator Gilbert Nnaji,said the red chamber had resolved to unmask those behind the payment of N50 billion by the Mobile Telecommunication Network,MTN. Nnaji said the Senate was interested in knowing why MTN was directed to pay the money into a recovery account instead of routing it through the regulatory agency, Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC.