Telecom operators face sanctions over poor services

The Ministry of Communication Technology and the Consumer Protection
Council, CPC, yesterday, charged telecoms providers in the country to
work hard and improve their service delivery to consumers or risk
fines, withdrawal of licences and jail terms of five years.
This is just as the regulatory authority, Nigerian Communi-cations
Commission, NCC, has given notice to MTN, GLO, Airtel, Etisalat, Swift
Networks, Intercellular, Multi-Links and Visafone of its intention to
sanction them for falling below specified Key Performance Indicator,
KPI, on quality of service.
At a joint press briefing in Lagos, Mrs. Omobola John, Minister of
Communication Technology, said: "NCC has announced, and I repeat here,
from December 31 any network operator that does not meet previously
agreed targets on quality of service, QOS, indicators will be
immediately prevented from further expansion of their subscriber base
until further notice.
"In other words, they will not be allowed to sell SIM cards to new
subscribers until quality of service targets are met."
According to her, the ministry is aware of the problems the operators
have in terms of cost of right of ways, damage to fibre optics and
base stations through acts of vandalisms, terrorism and flood,
including multiple taxation. Yet these excuses are not valid for
short-changing consumers.
"To tackle quality of service issues in the industry, the ministry in
partnership with the Ministry of Works developed new Right of Way,
ROW, guidelines for Federal Government roads to enable operators have
unencumbered means of laying fibre optics, which is critical for
infrastructure development and quality of service.
"To remove arbitrary charges and eradicate multiple taxations that
impede telecoms development across the nation, we got state governors
and relevant authorities at the state and federal levels to address
the issue of multiple taxations and adopt measures that will remove
arbitrary charges and eradicate multiple taxations to enhance service
delivery across the nation.
"At a closed-door meeting with Governor Fashola last week, the
ministry facilitated a landmark agreement to remove constraints to the
installation, rollout and deployment of base stations and fibre optic
cable in the state."