Senate orders NCC to halt planned hike in data tariffs

Senate orders NCC to halt planned hike in data tariffs

The Senate, Wednesday, ordered the Nigerian Communication Commission, NCC, to halt immediately, its planned hike in data tariff. The senate which mandated a Committee on Communication to carry out through oversight on the process to ensure that Nigerians are carried along in the process said it must ensure that Nigerians are not short changed by such hike.

Describing it as a height of irresponsibility, the Senate which further mandated the #CtteeCommunications to investigate the allegations of failure of the service providers also said that “” It is very important that we protect the people that brought us here this is the height of irresponsibility by @NgComCommission.”

“Senators in all totality condemned the increase of data Tariffs by the service providers in tandem with @NgComCommission.”

“At this time without any consultation from the statistics it is almost four times the price”
“Senate now resolves to halt the new tariff approval.”

It would be recalled that on Monday, subscribers of the Global System of Mobile telecommunications across the country where informed that they would pay more for data with effect from December 1, 2016.

Although the telecoms companies declined to speak on the matter, top management workers across the networks confirmed the story to some media organisation, saying that the directive was from the Nigerian Communications Commission.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior management employee of Etisalat Nigeria said, “The NCC issued the directive late last week on the orders of the Federal Government. We have not announced it yet because most of the major telcos have been meeting the NCC on how to reverse this policy, because it will be too harsh for Nigerians.

“However, we further gathered that the Federal Government took the decision having discovered that data rates are very low-priced in Nigeria, compared to other countries, including nearby African countries.

“The government might have also taken the decision given that Nigerian subscribers have been kicking against the proposed nine per cent Communication Tax, whose bill is currently in the National Assembly.”

Pleading not to be mentioned, an employee of MTN said, “What this means is that MTN, Airtel, Etisalat And Globacom will increase their data rates as from December 1, 2016. A data plan of N1,000 for 1.5 Gigabytes will now be increased to N3,000 at N1,000 per 500 Megabytes.”