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Sanctions won’t resolve poor quality services – Telecoms operators

By on February 26, 2014

Telecomms companies in the country have said that the N647.5m fine imposed on some of them for poor quality services by the Nigerian Communications Commission will not change the current situation for the better.

The firms, under the aegis of the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria, said the sanction was not necessary as the operators were not the cause of the problem.

The NCC had imposed the sum of N647.5m on three service providers, Airtel, Globacom and MTN Nigeria Limited for failing to meet the Key Performance Indicators for quality of service in January.

As a consequence, the three companies were barred from selling new Subscriber Identification Module cards with effect from March 1 till March 31, 2014, and from carrying out all promotions until they improved on the KPIs.

However, the President, ATCON, Mr. Lanre Ajayi, told our correspondent in a telephone interview on Monday that the fines were not necessary because the operators were not intentionally making their services to be poor.

“These sanctions will become necessary if the operators are doing this on purpose. Sanctions can’t change anything; it is just a distraction. It will only make us to take our eyes off the real issues,” he said.

Ajayi said the issue of multiple taxation, Right of Way hitches and epileptic power supply, among others, were major problems that must be addressed if progress must be made in the telecoms industry.

“Sanctions only attract applause from the public, but don’t address the real problems on the ground,” the ATCON boss stressed.

The details of the sanctions showed that Airtel and MTN were to pay N185m each as fines, while Globacom was ordered to pay N277.5m. In addition, each of the operators must pay the amounts on or before March 7, 2014, failure upon which each they would be liable to pay N2.5m per day as long as the contravention persisted.

The sanctions, which were communicated to the three operators in a letter signed by the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, said the commission would carry out an audit of the three companies on March 1 and also on March 31, 2014 to ensure that no sale of new SIM cards would take place in any of the three networks within the period.

 

 

[Punch]