Government Orders NCC To Sanction Telecos Over Illegal Charges

The Nigerian Communications Commission has been ordered by the government to sanction any telecommunication firm imposing illegal charges on customers.

Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, gave the order in a statement on Thursday.

The commission also ordered that the new charges on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data should be stopped.

The statement reads, “We have directed the Nigerian Communication Commission to ask MTN to suspend the plan.

“We are not aware of it officially. We will investigate and make sure the right thing is done.

“The attention of the Ministry has been drawn to the activities of some mobile network operators who in spite of the earlier directive suspending the planned Unstructured Supplementary Service Data access charge on banking services, have continued the illegal deduction from subscribers.

“This also serves a notice to the general public that anyone in possession of evidence of charges after the minister’s directive had taken effect, should forward the same to the Nigerian Communications Commission for further action.”

This directive is coming days after MTN said it would start charging N4 on USSD transactions on the request of commercial banks

However, the banks including the Central Bank of Nigeria disowned the telecommunication company, saying they made no such request.