No Plans To Increase Tariffs — Telcos

The Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, Gbenga Adebayo, said that there was no plan afoot to increase its tariffs, against the backdrop of imminent hike.

Adebayo gave the assurance on Wednesday during Sunrise Daily on Channels Television.

He said, “There are no such plans; we guarantee that there will be continuous service availability to all citizens in all places at all times.”

Following grapevines in some quarters that the telecom operators were set to review tariff rates to compensate for the rising costs of operations felt across the country, the firm reassured subscribers to dismiss such notions, assuredly pledging its commitment towards serving Nigerians better.

“We don’t have plans for tariff reviews. We are consulting with our regulators and others in government to see what kind of sustainability we can have for the industry,” the ALTON chair affirmed.

He broached the issue of NIN-SIM linkage, vis-a-vis the barring of customers’ outgoing calls on unlinked SIM cards, sequel to their failure to heed government’s repeated deadlines issued by the National Identity Management Commission.

Adebayo said upon the new fiat, there had been an increasing number of subscribers scurrying to link their SIM cards with the mandatory NIN.

“It has been a lot of pressure at various experience centres. There has also been a lot of pressure on the systems,” he remarked.

“It has been a lot of concerns expressed by the members of the public to our various contact centres; so it appears the heat is coming to all of us at this time.

“Unfortunately, we have been on this for fourteen months – many people didn’t respond to the calls to link their SIM to their NIN, and so we are where we are,” he added.