In the a process to effect the SIM card registration, the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) has directed the country’s three mobile service providers, MTN, Airtel and Zamtel, to open toll-free lines to attend to questions regarding the whole process.

The SIM card registration process was concluded in January this year but was completed with so many errors like; swapping of subscribers names  and mobile numbers, wrong deactivation.

It is because of this that ZICTA has issued the direction of a toll free lines so that users could call the operators to make the needed changes.

ZICTA public relations manager Ngabo Nankonde said in the last five days, a technical team had been monitoring all three mobile service providers on their performance.

“As is the case in any process of this magnitude, some level of margin of error is expected and accepted. Any service provider found to have mistakes within the margin of error will be requested to re-run their system. However, for any service provider whose errors shall be above the accepted threshold will be punished by law,” Nankonde told local press.

She said in order to attend to errors, service providers have been directed to have a ‘dedicated’ toll-free line and staff to attend to queries from consumers who previously registered but had been erroneously deactivated.

“The phone lines are 101 for MTN and Zamtel, and 4338 for Airtel. In the event that consumers are dissatisfied with the manner in which their matter is being handled, they should phone the ZICTA complaints toll-free line on 7070 or send an e-mail to complaints@zicta.zm,” Nankonde added.

Nankonde said a total number of 2,215,376 SIM cards have been deactivated from a total number of 8,235,991 which had been registered following the end of the SIM card registration exercise.