Nigeria’s Senate has ordered an investigation into alleged illegal airtime deductions by telecommunications operators for failed, dropped and interrupted calls, amid widespread complaints that subscribers are being charged for services they never received.
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Key Highlights
- The Senate has ordered a probe of MTN, Airtel, Globacom and T2 Mobile over airtime deductions for failed and dropped calls.
- The Committee on Communications has four weeks to report.
- The motion was sponsored by Senate Chief Whip Mohammed Monguno and seconded by Senator Ned Nwoko.
- Automatic refunds and independent audits of billing systems are among the proposals to be examined.
- Akpabio warned the full Senate would take over if the committee’s findings fall short.
The Senate has given its Committee on Communications four weeks to investigate the billing practices of MTN, Airtel, Globacom and T2 Mobile, establish the financial losses suffered by subscribers and recommend appropriate sanctions against operators found culpable.
The resolution follows the adoption of a motion on consumer protection sponsored on Wednesday by the Senate Chief Whip, Senator Mohammed Monguno.
Seconding the motion, Senator Ned Nwoko described the problem as a widespread experience among telecommunications subscribers across the country, insisting that Nigerians should not continue paying for calls that fail to connect or terminate prematurely.
Sen. Nwoko said the Senate needs to intervene to protect consumers from avoidable financial losses arising from poor telecommunications services.
“It is all about consumer protection. A lot of time, everybody is involved in the use of calls, making calls across the country, and we all experience the same technical issues,” he said.
What the Committee Will Examine
Following the adoption of the motion, the Senate directed the committee to invite the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and telecommunications operators to investigate complaints relating to failed calls, dropped calls, unterminated calls and questionable billing practices.
The committee is also expected to determine the amount subscribers may have lost through such deductions and recommend legislative and regulatory measures to address the problem.
Among the issues to be examined are proposals for automatic refunds for verifiably failed calls, independent technical audits of operators’ billing systems, accessible complaint mechanisms and stricter enforcement of existing quality-of-service standards.
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Akpabio Warns Operators, NCC
Reacting to the resolution, Senate President Godswill Akpabio urged the committee to commence the investigation immediately, warning that the Senate would take over the exercise if its findings failed to adequately address subscribers’ concerns.
Akpabio acknowledged that four weeks was a lengthy period for the investigation but said the committee would be given the time to complete its assignment.
“Four weeks is too long, but we can allow it. If in four weeks they don’t satisfy us, then we have to take it as a Committee of the Whole and invite all the operators, in addition to the minister overseeing the NCC and also the executive vice chairman of NCC, to ask these pertinent questions,” he said.
He said the Senate could no longer ignore persistent complaints from Nigerians who lose airtime despite failed connections and poor telecommunications services.
“The public is complaining, and our job here is to make sure that we tackle the concerns of the Nigerian public and also the losses they suffer that are actually avoidable,” Akpabio added.
The Senate president also questioned the effectiveness of regulatory supervision in the telecommunications sector, stressing that the NCC, the supervising minister and service providers would be required to account for their roles in addressing the complaints.
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