The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that the country’s mobile operators are failing to comply with its decision to prevent companies from offering promotions until customer services are improved.
A directive issued by the NCC earlier this month instructed operators to “stop all promotions and lotteries with immediate effect.” However, as claimed by the regulatory body, the telecom companies are not abiding by the move.
The NCC said that operators Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat have “all disregarded the directive from the Nigerian Communications Commission.”
The organisation said these companies were issued with warnings which said “the trio had yet to comply with its 8 November directive.”
The Nigerian regulator continued to say it “had discovered that Globacom observed the directive only in breach, as proven by the fact it had not communicated the ban to subscribers as prescribed in the directive.”
It said Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat had “not withdrawn their promotions and lotteries advertisements in the electronic and print media and on bill boards.”
The commission added that Etisalat is continuing to send to its subscribers text messages advertising its promotions.
The NCC added that the companies could face large fines and/or penalties if they do not abide by the directive and cease all promotional activity.
David Eto
It may appear initially that operators were not heeding to the Ban but the obvious thing that happened was that they were trying to pull out their advertisements from the press and this takes time and planning> The ban was sudden and the backlash was that the efforts to commence and conclude the process of pulling out all the advertisements from the marketplace showed the operators mentioned as not being compliant while in actual fact they had started complying. The telecommunication industry in Nigeria reposes a lot of confidence on the regulator and its actions and cannot be seen to flout any of its directives.
Thank God for the NCC. These incessant text messages about one promo after the other are really a Nuissance. There should atleast be an option where people subscribe for these promos if they are interested!