The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has partnered with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to tackle persistent issues surrounding failed telecom transactions, particularly airtime and recharge errors.
Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Aminu Maida, disclosed this during an interactive session with journalists in Abuja. He explained that both institutions have established a joint task force to create a standardised operational framework for resolving transaction disputes, which is currently under review.
“When you recharge, you get debited and don’t necessarily get the credit. The director of consumer affairs with our counterparts in the CBN set up a task force, and there’s now a framework that is undergoing review to standardise the operations around top-ups and recharge,” Maida said.
He attributed the challenges to the absence of a unified standard across industry players, which necessitated the collaborative approach.
Maida further assured that operators are implementing new infrastructure to enhance service quality and disclosed that the NCC has revised its Quality-of-Service guidelines to ensure accountability.
On complaints about data depletion, he clarified that independent audits conducted by PwC and KPMG found no evidence of deliberate data fraud by telecom operators. Instead, he said, complex tariff structures often mislead consumers.
“What we did was issue a guideline for simplification and gave them a template whereby everybody must disclose their tariffs in a unified format,” he said.
Providing updated figures, Maida revealed that Nigeria currently boasts 171 million active telecom subscribers, 141 million internet users, and 105 million broadband connections, translating to an 81.9 per cent internet penetration rate.
Director of the Consumer Affairs Bureau, Freda Bruce-Bennett, advised users to adopt better data management practices, such as turning off auto-play and limiting background app data usage.
