Thirteen years after the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) operators began business in Nigeria, there persists a litany of complaints in the quality of service they provide subscribers.
The four GSM companies operating in Nigeria - MTF, Airtel, Glo and Etisalat - boast a combined subscriber base of about 122 million and contribute a combined total of about N160 billion in taxes annually to the federal government’s purse, with another N55 billion paid in various forms of regulatory levies. Reports have it that operators have paid about N640 billion in licence and spectrum fees since 2001.
But public complaints against the quality of their services would tend to take the shine out of their strides. According to the Director-General of the Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Mrs Dupe Atoki, “We have continued to be inundated with myriads of complaints from subscribers. The commonest are those of poor network service, unsolicited services, unlawful deductions/wrong billings, exploitative automotive services, unauthorized SIM swaps, poor internet service and poor customer service generally.”
Many subscribers grumble that huge incomes that the operators generate from patronage by subscribers do not match their poor service delivery. Atoki confirmed that the GSM firms have, indeed, been thriving in terms of income. In 2012, the firms reportedly generated about $9.3 billion (N1.5 trillion) from subscribers.
Last week, Wale Goodluck, MTN’s corporate executive said in a presentation to the media that the largely South African-owned mobile operator reported revenues of N793.614 billion in its 2013 business year. The amount was a marginal 5.31 per cent rise from the N753.578 billion recorded in 2012 and 4.70 per cent above revenues posted in 2011,
Subscribers, frustrated by the poor quality of service the operators offer despite the huge sums they (the operators) declare annually have vented their rage on the regulatory agency, the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC), alleging conspiracy between regulator and operators.
Mrs Elizabethe Ataga, a resident in Abuja fumed, “The NCC is not only toothless but needless. They are more interested in cashing in on the sanctions than actually addressing the issues.”
Seemingly not unperturbed by the accusation, the NCC had on a number of occasions moved to penalize erring operators. Last year, the NCC fined the operators a whopping sum of N1.17bn for failure to meet key performance indicators (KPI) on quality of services (QoS) set by it.
MTN Communications Limited and Emerging Market Telecoms Services Limited (Etisalat Nigeria) were fined the sums of N360 million each, while Airtel Networks Limited and Globacom Limited were fined N270m and N180m respectively
Subscribers and Mrs Atoki were obviously not impressed by the NCC action. “In as much as this measure could serve as a deterrent to the operators, it does not directly assuage the condition of the consumer who is denied value for money on a daily basis,” she said.
At one recent forum on the performance of the operators, the subscribers’ aggregate view is that either the fines have become so insignificant that it can be paid with continuous disregard for the Commission or that the operators have become too big for the Commission to tame.
But in one media interview done after the subscribers’ damning impression on the operators’ performance, Visafone Communications Ltd boss, Sailesh Iyer reiterated what has become the usual defence mechanism employed by all the operators. Iyer was quoted to have said that low broadband penetration in the country has compelled telecoms companies to divert focus from quality of service to building of telecoms infrastructure like fibre cable-laying and base stations. The Visafone boss attributed the current poor state of telecoms’ services across networks to such diversions. He equally blamed government for delays in granting right of way to telecoms operating companies which are eager to expand their networks through the laying of fibre cables.
Engineer Ubale Maska, the Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, at a stakeholders meeting organized by the CPC cautioned, “One is not defending them (the operators) when we say they must have done their best. But then, we don’t want to continue to recognize those limitations because then we will never be able to get out of it.
“The public should be aware that the operators are looking for investors all over the world. A sanction hurts the ratings of an operator globally. No matter how you look at it, operators will go to a great extent to avoid it.”
A financial expert, Joseph Enenche, however, wondered why the huge sanctions from the operators are not applied in the areas of improving the infrastructural deficit.
Enenche queried, “I was curiously looking at the N1.23 trillion or $7.07 billion to governments in taxes and other levies by MTN alone since inception in 2001, not to talk about the several hundreds of billions by other operators. What did we do with all that money?”
Another grave concern is the alleged face-off between the NCC and the National Environment Standards Regulation and Enforcement Agency (NESREA) over who has the right to enforce rules on siting or otherwise of telecoms base stations across the country.
Engr. Maska also hinted of the lingering crisis between the operators and the Federal Capital Territory Administration over the proliferation of temporary site permit.
Maska said, “Last year alone, I had over 13 meetings with them because of temporary permit which they have refused to regularize after 12 years. But they ended up allocating it to someone else who refused to sell it to the operators, forcing them to close down sites with 20 to 30 connections. The way they had to rush to get these things did not make for easy coordination.”
There is also the issue of vandalization. Operators had had cause to publish in the newspapers information alerting the public to the growing incident of criminal damage to their infrastructure in various parts of the country and the impact on quality of service in the country, particularly in Port Harcourt, Onitsha, Lagos, Kano and Abuja.”
Nonetheless, subscribers maintain that not much is being done by the relevant authorities to alleviate their agonies on GSM usage. While they have lost confidence in the ability of the NCC to adequately protect their interest, they are hoping the intervention by the Consumer Protection Council would bring succour to them.
Sunday Trust learnt the CPC has been making efforts to directly engage the chief executive officers of the GSM companies in deep deliberations with a view to coming up with policy initiatives that would provide actual decisive solutions to identified problems and protection for telecom subscribers. The efforts, it was learnt, have, however, not really been fruitful as the CEOs had allegedly been nonchalant about the meetings.
At an inaugural meeting held at the CPC headquarters last Thursday, our correspondent observed no CEO was physically. Rather, they sent in representatives who, CPC officials said, were not able to make tangible commitments on the way forward. When confronted by the pressmen at the venue, the representatives all avoided making comments.
But Atoki volunteered, “The stand of the CPC is that consumers must get value for money. We have had good deliberations, CPC is not solely confrontational; we only want to have a chat with the CEOs and an agreement and see how that takes us forward.
“We have come to the conclusion that there will be another meeting to further deliberate on the various challenges and issues that concern the complaints that have been raised. The law provides that anyone who provides services that cause loss to another is guilty of an offence.”
Industry watchers and subscribers wonder whether the CPC can, in addition to fines by the NCC, work at committing GSM operators who continuously contravene the NCC’s demands of the KPI on QoS and the CPC enactments to jail terms.
