On Sunday, been October 20, MTN Nigeria sent messages to all its subscribers nationwide saying, it was going to start charging #4.00 per transaction for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) used for banking service.
A copy of the message is as shown below:
However, the attention of the federal government has been drawn to the matter, reacting in a press release, the federal government through the Ministry of Communication and the office of the Honourable Minister of Communication, Dr Isa Pantimi ordered the Nigeria Communications Commission to stop such arrangement with immediate effect until the he is properly briefed about such charges.
The Press release……..
The minister gave the advice at a meeting with NCC management on the progress made in the implementation of the Short-Term Performance targets set for it.
The minister lamented by saying that ” “with the prevailing high cost of data in Nigeria, the citizens still do not enjoy value for money as subscribers’ battle daily with illegal deduction of data, poor Quality of Service (QoS), among others.”
Dr Isa Pantimi reminded NCC that one of their main job as communication regulator in the country, is to protect the interest of Nigerians and disengage all irregularities and unprofessionalism.
The Minister has however told Nigerians that the federal government will get to the root of the matter and ensure a better decision that will benefit mostly Nigerians.
The Minister’s attention has also been drawn about how other network providers charges them unjustly, such as Airtel which charges between #50.00 to #52.00 among other network providers.