The Minister of Communications Technology, Mr Adebayo Shittu, yesterday said the Federal Government would impose severe sanctions on telecos und to have defrauded Nigerians through poor quality of service, incessant dropped calls and other unauthorised charges.
He accused the operators of under-declaring revenue and profit, saying the Federal Government would henceforth take advantage of new technology to verify the amount of revenue generated by operators via government regulatory and revenue agencies such as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
Speaking during his maiden meeting with carriers in Abuja, Shittu said his office has been inundated with complaints, petitions and allegations of fraudulent and unauthorised charges by the global system for mobile communications (GSM) service providers in the country.
He said he had to intervene following reports that “these unauthorised charges have been so prevalent.
“This action must stop immediately or else severe sanctions will be imposed on any operators that violate this directive.”
Those at the meeting were MTN Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ferdi Moolman, and Mrs Amina Oyegbola, Airtel Director of Legal Services, Mr Shola Adeyemi, while Etisalat was represented by its Chief Executive Officer, Mr Mattew Wilsher and Malam Ibrahim Dikko. Globacom was not represented at the meeting which was also attended by the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta.
The minister listed the complaints against the telecommunication operators as extortion of subscribers, incessant drop calls, poor quality of service, dead or salient calls and cross talk, data bundle roll over and call tariff plans.
Others are deficiency in data penetration, rollout of 4G/LTE network, under-declared revenue and profit, disengagement of Nigerian tax paying employees through out-sourcing to foreign companies and discrepancy and discriminination against Nigerian employeees by telecom operators.
Shittu said: “There is a need for all network operators to consider rolling over the monthly unused data by the subscribers to the new month. No operator should wipe out the unused data of any subscriber going forward.”
He added all tariff plans introduced by the telecom operators need to be properly investigated to ensure that there are no hidden charges.
