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The president of Nigeria's National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers, NATCOMS, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, says Nigerian telecommunication subscribers lose a minimum of N730 billion annually to poor Quality of Service, (QoS) by telecommunication service providers.

Chief Ogubanjo, who disclosed this to Vanguard in an exclusive interview, decried the incremental drop in the quality of services across the nation, saying that payment of the N647m fine imposed by the industry regulator, NCC against the service providers should be made to subscribers rather than government.

He noted that the 2013 Act of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC lacks the capacity to protect the Nigerian consumers from poor quality of service, except there is disruption of service, which prompted the association to approach the court to determine the justification of continued refusal of the operators to compensate the subscribers for poor quality of service.

Part of their demand according to him from the court is to determine whether fines imposed by the NCC on the service providers should be paid to government, which does not have direct impact of poor quality of service.

“Here in Nigeria, there was no service disruption but there is poor quality of service, which makes subscribers lose every year, the minimum of N730 billion. The NCC Act of  2013, and there is a section of it that deals with human issues but when you go through the Act, there is nothing to really protect the consumer from poor quality of service, except perhaps there is something on disruption of services. “If you look at Nigeria sometime ago, Blackberry services were disrupted and NCC gave a directive that they should give compensation of five-six days compensation to Nigeria subscribers of Blackberry services. Also in Ghana, subscribers on MtN services were given compensation."

It is unfortunate, that when fines are given, it is government that is the beneficiary of fines given by the operators rather than the consumers. “In 2012, N1.17 billion was given as fines and it was paid by the operators to government; and  only about two three weeks ago, another fine in 2014 of N647 million, with that we know that subscribers get."

Credit: Vanguard Nigeria