The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been given five days by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami to address the issue of illegal deduction of subscribers’ data bundles.
The Minister also directed the NCC to compel telcos to reduce the prices of their data packages.
The Details: These directives were given when Adeleke Adewolu, the new Executive Commissioner of the NCC, was inaugurated. Pantami, who said he was also affected by the issues, was unhappy that his directives had not been carried out after issuing them in October when he received a progress report on the NCC’s Key Performance Target Indicators.
For Pantami, the issue was quite critical. In his address, he started with the issue of quick data depletion.
“I commented last time on the issue of data deduction, this is one of the issues that is worrying me badly to death. I was not fully convinced with the explanation by the NCC; please go back and review that issue. It is very important and I want to get your feedback in the next five working days with the decision on it because the complaints from Nigerians are beyond what I can handle.
“As it is today, people are complaining and it happens to me. I recharge my phone (my data line) and I believe what I use is not up to 20 per cent of what I purchase. This is an issue that is very important,” he stated.
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He then moved to address the issue regarding cost of data bundles.
“Also, I directed the NCC to reduce the price of data as well. It is very important because other African countries that are not as big as we are, have a lesser price of data,” he added.
According to the Minister, NCC’s job involves protection of consumers. He stressed the need to make sure Nigerians are well treated and tasked the NCC to deliver those targets as soon as possible.
