Nigeria Telecommunication Company Finally Pays Commission Fine

 

 After weeks of declining to pay the NCC penalty for poor quality service, Nigeria Telecommunication companies have finally paid their fine. The telecommunications giants in Nigeria paid a total fine of $3.7 million.

The telecom companies at a meeting with the commission last week had agreed to pay their fines, after an agreement was reached with the commission to review the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

"MTN, Globacom and Airtel paid at the close of work on Monday this week, while Etisalat paid at the close of work on Tuesday," Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) sources who opted to remain anonymous told the PTI on the phone.

MTN’s Corporate Services Executive, Mr Wale Goodluck, also confirmed to The Nation that his company had paid the fine, at the Sixth Business Law Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Lagos. A source at the commission confirming the payment of the fine to the medium, said, "It was a win-win situation."

The country's telecom regulatory authority, NCC, had on May 10 imposed a fine of N1.17billion on the four operators in the country for poor quality of services after a KPIs test was carried out on their networks for the months of March and April. The fine was imposed on them for failing to satisfy the Nigeria mobile user population who mostly had to use two lines as an alternative if their primary network provider fails them.

The NCC had arrived at the decision on testing the operators on four parameters - Call Set-up Success Rate, Call Completion Rate, Drop Call Rate and Traffic Channel Congestion. The commission said the telecoms companies have failed to meet with the minimum standard of quality of service but the telecoms company declined saying the bad quality of services was because of the poorly developed infrastructure like electricity in the country.

While MTN and Etisalat were fined N360million each, Airtel and Globacom were fined N270million and N180million. They were given up till May 25 to pay the fine or get additional N2.5million daily as contravention charges.

It was however not confirmed if the extra surcharges were also paid by the operators.

Meanwhile, to ascertain the adverse effect of ICT equipment on consumers NCC has slated a conference on EMF Exposure and Health in Lagos State. 

Posted from VENTURES AFRICA