SIM sales cap to come into effect from May

Communications Authority of Maldives (CAM) announced on Tuesday that they will limit the number of SIM cards registered to a single person and will start implementing it in May.

At a meeting of the State Owned Enterprise (SOE) Committee of parliament on scam calls and siphoning of money from bank accounts, CAM chief executive Ilyas Ahmed said efforts are underway to limit the number of SIMs to be issued to each individual.

Ilyas said that if one person has too many numbers in his name, then the suspension of the service of numbers can also be done from May onwards.

"Our new policy is that everyone will get a certain amount of SIMs. We will start work at the earliest from May. Then in the next three months, the target is to decide on the numbers to be disconnected and make sure that things settle down," Ilyas said.

Based on information provided by communication service providers, the police had earlier shared with the committee that it has been confirmed that 305 numbers are being used by inmates of K. Maafushi Prison. At a committee meeting held last week, the members said:

Instead of being immediately activated at the time of sale, it was made in December that it would not be activated until information about a person who bought the sim card was received by Dhiraagu or Ooredoo.

A large part of Tuesday’s meeting was conducted in secrecy at the request of Maldives Corrections.