The federal government is to prosecute telecommunications operators, found to be fleecing subscribers through poor service delivery just as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has given the operators till December 31 to improve the quality of their service provisioning or face sanctions.

Mrs. Omobola Johnson, minister of Communications Technology, who read the riot act in Lagos at a news conference, said her ministry had commenced collaboration with the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) to sanction operators rendering poor services or collecting charges from subscribers for services not rendered.

“The ministry, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the CPC are now working together to deliver appropriate customer redress to telecoms subscribers. These will include but not limited to rebate on airtime, usage irregularities, inaccurate billing and options to opt out of unsolicited SMS messages,’’ she said.

Johnson said over 120 millions telecoms subscribers in the country had been at the receiving end of poor service delivery that had made it impossible for them to make or receive calls.

The minister said that subscribers had also been at the receiving end of insufficient customer care lines, unrelenting sales promotions by the networks and deceptive broadband speed adverts by service providers.

Johnson said that the imposition of fines on the service providers for which the NCC collected N1.7 billion 18 months ago had not made the companies to provide better services.

She noted, however, that the ministry had reached out to state governments to reduce the multiple taxation imposed on the telecoms operators, saying that the cost of right of way on federal highways had been reduced by about 90 per cent.

“We have also negotiated an agreement with State Governments  to reduce cost of right of way on state highways and for them to also reduce the charges on infrastructure,’’ she stated.

She said that the ministry had since reached understanding with the Lagos, Ekiti, Cross River and Rivers Government on outright waivers on some charges imposed on telecoms providers.

According to her, the Federal Executive Council has also approved a new bill on cyber- crime which has severe penalties for wanton destruction of telecommunications infrastructure.

Dr Eugene Juwah, executive vice chairman, NCC, said the commission had issued a Dec. 31, 2013 deadline to stop telecom operators from selling SIM packs or expanding their networks if they failed to improve services.

NCC warned the operators that failure to comply with the KPI service quality level after the deadline will attract stiff penalties such as fines and suspension from sale of new SIM cards, among others.

It was however unclear whether NCC’s directives referred to technical proficiency of the operators which invariably affect consumer complaints about drop and uncompleted calls, or unsolicited text messages which inundate phone inboxes.

Josephine Amuwa, director, Legal and Regulatory Services, NCC, had earlier in a letter of warning to the operators  said that  “The commission, after careful investigation of the quality of service of all the major network operators, has concluded that the present service being provided by telecommunications service providers falls below the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) published by the commission in the quality of service regulation.”

MTN, Globacom, Etisalat, Airtel, Swift Network, Intercellular Nigeria Plc, Multilinks and Visafone were listed as recipients.

NCC said it noticed the falling quality of service after a critical review of the standards, hence the new directive: “Failure to comply with any directive will result in the imposition of N5 million sanction plus N500,000 per day (penalty) for as long as the contravention persists,” it warned.

The sanction will be calculated from the deadline specified by NCC’s notice to any operator to raise its standard of service quality.

Mrs Dupe Atoki, director-general of the CPC, said the council had constituted a consumer education taskforce to enlighten consumers on their rights and privileges.

Atoki pleaded for more funds from the Federal Government to enable the CPC to work harder to achieve the goals for which it was established, assuring Nigerians that the company would live up to expectations.

 
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