There may be hope in sight for telecommunication subscribers regarding failed, dropped and interrupted calls over billing as the Nigerian Senate summoned the Nigerian Communications Commission ( NCC), MTN Nigeria, Airtel Nigeria, GlobalCom, and T2 service providers to explain the practices of deductions.
The summons followed a motion sponsored by the Senate Chief Whip, Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno (Borno North), on the need to curb unjustified deductions from subscribers’ airtime resulting from substandard telecommunications services.
Monguno, while presenting the motion through the Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Lola Ashiru (Kwara South), told the Red Chamber that millions of Nigerians spend substantial amounts on airtime daily, yet frequently experience failed call connections, abrupt disconnections, inaudible conversations and network interruptions, with airtime deducted without effective communication.
The lawmaker said the practice amounts to making Nigerians pay for services not effectively delivered, insisting that payment for airtime is payment for a service and not merely an attempt to establish communication.
Contributing on the floor of the red chamber, other senators described it as timely, saying that telecommunications challenges affected virtually every Nigerian and required urgent attention from relevant regulatory authorities.Nigerian news subscription
They told Nigerians not to continue paying for communication services that were not effectively delivered, adding that the concerns raised deserved appropriate regulatory interventions.
The upper chamber accordingly, mandated its Committee on Communications to investigate the operators’ billing systems, establish the scale of deductions from failed, dropped and interrupted calls, and assess the financial losses suffered by subscribers.
It directed the committee to report back to the Senate within four weeks with recommendations for further legislative and regulatory action, including transparent billing, operator accountability and automatic refunds or compensation for unjustified deductions, in line with the NCC’s mandate under the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 to protect consumers and enforce acceptable standards of service delivery.
Speaking after the adoption, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, urged the Committee on Communications, led by Senator Bill Bills, to commence work immediately, describing the four-week deadline as lengthy but necessary.
He warned that the Senate would not hesitate to take over the matter as a Committee of the Whole if the committee failed to deliver a satisfactory report within the stipulated period.
The Senate President stressed that the legislature could no longer ignore the growing complaints from telecommunications subscribers, particularly over financial losses arising from services that are either poorly delivered or not delivered at all.
The regulator and operators are to appear before the Senate Committee on Communications to explain their billing practices and the extent of airtime deductions from calls that did not connect or were cut off midway.
He said subscribers are often forced to make repeated calls to achieve a successful connection, incurring additional costs for network failures beyond their control.
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(Editor: Roluke Ogundele)
