By Mohammed Mohammed
The Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta has disclosed that commercial banks
indebtedness to telecommunications companies is now more than N17 billion.
The cumulative accrued debt is coming following the regulator’s suspension of its determination on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) pricing in 2019.
According to authoritative information made available to SHARPEDGENews, which was signed by the Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, said NCC, in furtherance of its mandate to protect the interests of consumers and support a robust telecommunications sector, recently announced that it had revised the determination on the USSD.
The disclosure was made at ATCON’s virtual forum on “Meeting the Interests of Government, Consumers and Telecoms Companies in the Era of Covid-19 and post Covid-19 Pandemic for Digital Economy Development.”
Danbatta, hinted that the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Ibrahim Pantami, had already been briefed Nigerians and stakeholders on the development with a view to ensuring a quick settlement of the debt.
While also explaining NCC’s efforts at resolving consumer-related issues, he noted that when the Commission introduced the Do-Not-Disturb (DND) code in 2015, less than 500,000 people activated the code, but there are now 22,722,366 lines on the DND.
The EVC, expressed happiness that 98% of the total service-related complaints received from telecoms consumers within a 15-month period, spanning January 2019 to April 2020, have been successfully resolved by the Commission.
On the quality of service, Danbatta said: “the Commission has monthly engagements with operators as well as quarterly industry working group on Quality of Service and Short Codes, and is currently monitoring 2G Key Performance Indicators, while the KPIs for 4G are being prepared.”
Recall that NCC, in a statement made at the disposal of the media recently, observed that the amendment to its USSD Determination was necessitated by a protracted dispute between Mobile Network Operators and Financial Institutions on the applicable charges for USSD services and the method of billing. As a responsive and effective regulatory authority, the Commission recognises that its policies are not static and may be modified from time to time as circumstances demand.
Danbatta, said that in the interest of the consumers and other stakeholders, the Commission revised the Determination previously issued by removing the Price Floor and the Cap to allow Mobile Network Operators and the banks negotiate rates that will be mutually beneficial to all parties concerned.
The NCC also determined that Mobile Network Operators must not charge the consumers directly for the use of USSD channels for financial services in the form of end-user-billing, but revert to corporate billing.
The transaction should be between the MNOs and the entity to which the service is provided (i.e. Banks and Financial Institutions).