Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

NATCOMS puts subscribers’ yearly call expenses at N2.5tr

By Bankole Orimisan
12 August 2015   |   1:30 am
The National Association of Telecommunication Subscribers (NATCOM) has disclosed that telecoms subscribers in Nigeria spent a whopping N212bn on monthly basis.
Deolu-Ogunbanjo-Natcoms-president

Deolu-Ogunbanjo-Natcoms-president

The National Association of Telecommunication Subscribers (NATCOM) has disclosed that telecoms subscribers in Nigeria spent a whopping N212bn on monthly basis.

Speaking over the weekend on the Channels Television’s through its regular Programme called “Sunrise Daily” , NATCOM’s president, Deolu Ogunbanjo, said that about N2.5 trillion is spent on calls by consumers yearly; This, he said was enough grounds for consumers to be compensated.

Ogunbanjo, declared that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) understands the challenges faced by the network operators but “they don’t hit the nail on the head” NCC always sanction them.

According to him, “the Company’s process is, you first of all complain to the offending network operator, thereafter, when you are not satisfied, you then go to NCC. “The problem lies with their customer care (lines); 180, 222, 200, you seem not to reach them, but unfortunately once you reach them, they keep telling you about their promos .

You will be lucky if you could reach them to talk to and that, unfortunately, is the first step before you escalate to the NCC.”    He stressed that if at that point the NCC responds to the telecom subscribers on the issues they have, the problems would be solved.

Speaking about the quality of their services, Ogunbanjo suggested that proper compensation should go to customers who are victims of the network operators’ deficiencies. “There is a percentage that goes to the government on every call, which runs to billions of naira.

However, the subscriber is never taken care of,” he complained. “When the network operators are found guilty of some deficiencies about their network, the fine goes to the government.

Rather than giving the fines to the government, I want that change for the new NCC. I will want the new NCC to look at the subscribers from (the perspective of) suffering poor quality of service and to compensate them by giving soft fines through giving free airtime from the network operators to the subscribers that have really suffered injury,” he said.

0 Comments