NCC Tasks Service Providers On Consumer Education Read

Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) has carried its enlightenment campaign to Jos, Plateau State capital, as it organised its 21st edition of Consumer Town Hall Meeting (CTM) held at the Ayo Kehinde Multi–purpose Hall at Bukuru, calling on the telecom service providers to shun ambiguity in their information to consumers.


Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Abayomi Olawoyin, of the Initiative for the Support of Consumer Rights of the NCC, who made the call, added that the service providers should stop engaging in the use of convoluted language but should embark on the use of plain language that the consumers can easily understand.


According to Olawoyin, “We want clear information that people will understand. We don’t want ambiguity. Plain language is the word which consumers can understand without any stress.”
He lamented that most certificates of the university graduates nowadays are not marketable which, he said, makes the training in entrepreneurship skill very expedient.


The Deputy Director of NCC, Dr. Atoyebi Joseph, said that the essence of their coming to Jos was to enlighten the telecom subscribers on their rights and responsibilities and to empower them with the right information and education.


Joseph added that they wanted the consumers not only to know their rights but to also appreciate their own responsibilities to the industry.


“NCC has been holding consultation meetings with stakeholders on all burning and contemporary issues with a view to addressing them.


“Some of the policies rolled out by the commission, actually came from interactive fora like this, because we take everything here the proceedings back home as a feedback and review it and escalate to management through which policies now come out to address issues. So, it is like an input into the efforts the commission is making to make sure we really feel the pulse of the consumers and through after which we now come out with policies and initiatives that will address the concerns.”
On the issues of unsolicited text messages that have been occurring every time, Joseph said that NCC was not soft on the issues.


“If I may just tell you straight away, the world has become a global village. Regulating telecom in you domain, fine. But to regulate internet across the globe is a big problematic. Some of these messages come directly from other sources aside from the service providers and which is a fact of today’s technology.


“So, part of what the commission has done is to enforce this ‘Dont Disturb Me’ and I have the option to stop it. If it is partial DND or full DND, I have the option to take. The commission has done that. The commission has also licensed infrastructure companies to boost the level of infrastructure provisions in the telecom industry in Nigeria.


“The commission is not sleeping over any issue. In fact, we are on top of it at any time of the day. If you go to our website, you see so many things, other policies, initiatives that the commission has put out to regulate the industry. Regulation is continuous, it is ongoing, it is never final because issues come every now and then and as they come, they are tackled,” he explained.