Nigerian CommunicationWeek

Help! Big Telcos Killing Small Firms with ‘Unscrupulous’ Practices

Eugene Juwah, EVC, NCC

Small businesses operating in Nigeria face increasingly difficult odds of survival in their operations no thanks to man made obstacles.

Small businesses are crippled by  lack of funding, corrupt courts and greedy officials.

Routinely, businesses face corrupt officials who have the power to deny licenses, permits, office spaces and access to supplies unless substantial “gifts” or bribes are offered.

In the telecom industry, the picture is grimmer as big operators encouraged by lax regulation milk small firms dry.

The bigger firms abuse market power they have amassed and emasculate smaller operators,

When the small firms complain, they are harassed and blackmailed with the same corrupt administrative and legal system.

It is so sad that small operators subsidise the big boys so they can live the expensive lifestyle they are used to.

In other countries where telecommunications has had deep roots, the dominant operator is the one who subsidise the small operators.

The operators hide under the absence of anti-trust law and lack of machinery to regulate monopolistic and anticompetitive practices by powerful companies.

The telecom industry is currently subsisting under the anti-trust provision enshrined in the NCC’s Act.

That provision has been found to be defective because it does not protect other sectors of the economy. Experts said that the way forward is the institution of anti-trust law.

Anti-trust law seeks to make businesses compete fairly. Premised on the belief that free trade benefits the economy, businesses, and consumers alike, the law forbids several types of restraint of trade and monopolization.

The absence of anti-trust law has negative and far reaching effects on the economy.

Already smaller operators are being pushed out of the market by large operators with huge financial war chest.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that there are occasions where entrenched operators deliberately limit the size of interconnection between it and other operators in order to attract even more customers to their own networks.

There are also cases where large operators have arm-twisted smaller players and taken their ideas and business proposals.

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