The Nigerian Communications Commission has read the riot act to telecommunication companies in the country over abuse of customers’ rights and privileges.
Assuring the subscribers in the sector that it is set to toughen its fight against abuse, the Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, insisted that the customer remained King, deserved to get value for money and be treated as a very important stakeholder in the scheme of things, as far as service delivery was concerned.
He said, “We are fighting to protect consumers from unfair practices through availability of information and education to make informed choices in the use of ICT services.
Our objective is to engage, empower, educate and inform the consumers about their rights and responsibilities, opportunities and solutions that are available in the
industry.
“We have put the service providers on special notice about our current monitoring of user experience on issues of poor reception, wrong billings, deductions, and automatic roll-over, among other issues.
And if they fail to improve services to the detriment of the consumers, they will face appropriate regulatory actions and
sanctions.”
He reiterated that the commission would soon issue a directive to the service providers to give a 14-day window to the subscribers to enable them roll over their unused data, even if they do not renew on the date of expiration of the current subscription.
The Director, Consumer Affairs Bureau, Mr. Abdullahi Maikano, explained that the telecom consumers should be the target beneficiaries of all NCC’s activities.
Maikano maintained that the consumers enjoyed primary focus in terms of ensuring that they got good quality services,
value for money spent, timely and fair redress of complaints and protection from unwholesome practices of some service
providers.
