Nigerian Senate takes swipe at telecom firms

The Nigerian Senate has threatened to stop the marketing promotions by telecommunication companies in the West African country, arguing that the exercise was compromising the quality of telephone services.

Nigeria’s upper chamber claimed the numerous lotteries and promotions undertaken by the providers as part of their marketing strategies were worsening the quality of service and creating congestion accross the networks.

Sylvester Anyanwu, chairman of the Senate committee on telecommunications, said the committee was ready to ensure that the regular promotions by telecoms service providers were curtailed.

“We will write to the NCC (Nigerian Communications Commission) to stop these promotions or lotteries, which promise people will win this or that. They should stop it until they get the service delivery right”, he said.

Anyanwu said the NCC needed to work hard to ensure that the tariffs which subscribers were paying were reduced.

The Senate has said that the NCC performed poorly in 2009 in enforcing a reasonable interconnect fee regime in the industry.

Anyanwu added that the senate committee was not satisfied with the way the service providers were matching their expansion with the growth in subscribers.

He insisted that the service providers had also failed to make an impact in the rural areas where most Nigerians lived.

“These people (in the rural areas) have a right to quality services and we have tried to persuade service providers to cover those areas,” he said.

by Chris Uba