Abuja – The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has solicited stronger partnership with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for improved telecom services in the country.
The Director-General of CPC, Mrs Modupe Atoki, made the call when she visited the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta, in Abuja.
“There are certain complaints that we received and which we want to share and which we want to have this deliberation on a way forward to make sure that Nigerians begin to enjoy value for money.
“First is the quality of service, which every one of us here would have experienced one way or the other.
“It is still poor in spite of the effort that the NCC has put in, in streamlining their quality.
“And the common complaint is dropped calls, where you are truncated unexpectedly and your conversation is ended.
“However, I guess you are still billed for some of those conversations that you didn’t have.’’
She named other ordeals faced by consumers as unsolicited text messages as well as unauthorised conscription of consumers into telecom services or packages, especially caller tunes without an easy way to opt out.
Others are disruption of internet service without prior notice to consumers, lack of compensation for down times, unfavourable data roll-over terms and non-provision of detailed billing information on used data.
She said customers also face unfavourable call centres, ineffective customer care lines and non-transparent sales promotion terms and conditions.
Atoki described the violations in the nation’s telecom sector as intolerable stating that the two organisations needed to join forces to address.
The CPC director-general said the council was not unmindful of the challenges which the operators put out as being responsible for the poor services.
She however noted that the major concern of CPC was to ensure that consumers get value for their money and urged a stronger relationship with NCC to achieve it.
Responding, the NCC boss said the commission was striving very had to improve the quality of service of telecom providers in the country.
“We have established expertise in doing this to the extent that regulators within Africa come here to be trained in order to regulate their own telecommunications industry,’’
He explained that poor electricity supple in the country was affecting the quality of telecom services in the country, adding that until this issue was addressed, the quality will remain poor.
He noted that there was a scheme in place that would mandate operators to provide mechanism in which consumers could opt out of unsolicited data base and prevent such from getting to their phones.
Danbatta resolved that the Memorandum of Understanding by both organisation would be revived to ensure the protection of consumer rights in the country.
“We will look at the MoU to widen the scope to include things that are consistent with the dynamics and ensure that it is expanded to include new challenges in the telecom industry.
“This is as it regards consumer protection as well as the regulatory mandate of the CPC and the NCC concerning the protection of consumers.
“We have also resolved to increase the level of engagement in order to ensure that consumers are sensitised on the activities of both the CPCD and NCC as regards the quality of service in the industry. (NAN)
