By Cyril Ilayah
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), today hailed telecom consumers across the country, describing them as the biggest asset in the telecommunication industry.
Danbatta gave the kudos to the consumer in a speech he delivered at today’s Telecom Consumer Parliament (TCP), with the theme “Improving Telecom Service Delivery to Consumers: Key to Industry Sustainability” which was held at the NAF Conference Centre, Kado, Abuja.
“The Telecom consumer is expectedly the biggest assets in the industry. As a regulator, we are committed towards protecting their interest at all time,” he assured.
He, however, admitted that despite their loyalty, they are most times not treated fairly as gaps are still being noticed in the areas of quality of service delivery and consumer complaint resolution, among others, in spite of a series of initiatives put in place by the Commission to keep operators on their toes.
He argued that if the operators are doing well in service delivery, they will attract customers, who would be loyal to them in a way that guarantees operators’ growth and subsequently, boost the industry’s sustainability.
He also assured that the Commission is committed to protecting the interest of telecoms consumers at all time while also finding ways to addressing challenges facing the providers.
One of the initiatives the Commission is using to protect the consumer is the “Do-Not-Disturb (DND) short code for opting out of unsolicited text messages and the NCC 622 NCC toll-free line. “Our Do-Not-Disturb (DND) facility and the NCC 622 Toll-Free Line have also been set up specifically to ensure improvement in service delivery. More than 12 million subscribers have signed up for the DND as we continue to create more awareness on it,” Danbatta added.
The Telecoms Consumer Parliament (TCP) is one of the robust platforms designed by the Commission to facilitate interaction on issues of common interest among industry stakeholders. TCP provides opportunity for consumers to be educated. The theme of today’s event: “Improving Telecom Service Delivery to Consumers: Key to Industry Sustainability” is another of such carefully chosen topical issues aimed at furthering discussions on how service providers can improve on the entire service delivery.
