The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission
(NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta has said that commercial banks in the
country are owing telecommunications companies over N17 billion following
the regulator’s suspension of its Determination on Unstructured Supplementary
Service Data (USSD) Pricing last year.
The 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.
Speaking 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 noted that the Minister
of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Ali Isa Ibrahim Pantami had
already been briefed on the development with a view to ensuring a quick
settlement of the debt.
Explaining the Commission’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.
Danbatta further stated that ninety eight per cent (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 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.”
It should be recalled that the NCC in a statement released to 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.
According to Danbatta, 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).