Globacom Limited has paid the fine of N5, 000,000.00 (Five Million Naira) imposed on it by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for the contravention of the Commission’s Direction on the suspension of promotional activities.
Head, Public Affairs at NCC, Mr. Dave Imoke, who disclosed this in a press statement made available newsmen, noted that the Commission had issued a Direction to Globacom on July 6, 2007 stating among others that Glo “should not embark on and also discontinue any promotional activities that could directly or indirectly degrade the Quality of service on its network for a period of ninety days in the first instance.”
He said that in spite of the clear terms of the direction, the telco on July 23, 2007 published an advertisement on page 66 of ThisDay newspaper and commenced promotional activities, which had the effect of directly encouraging subscribers to make more minutes of call and thus further deteriorating the quality of service on its network in contravention of the direction.
In accordance with the provision of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, Regulation 15 of the Nigerian Communications (Enforcement Processes, etc) Regulations 2005 and the Direction dated July 6, 2007, the Commission, he said, on July 30, 2007 imposed the fine of N5,000,000.00 (Five Million Naira) on Globacom.
HANA recalls that NCC recalled that recently NCC had directed the three dominant operators to stop forthwith any promotion and concentrate in improving quality of service (QoS).
Some of the operators affected in the initial promotion directive included MTN, Glo and Celtel, mostly on the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), which services have continued to get worse in the past few months.
Mr. Imoko stressed that based on this fact, Globacom was fined half a million Naira for each day it defaulted since the deadline of the 14-day notice to stop its promo.
He explained that on July 6, 2007, Globacom alongside other affected operators were issued a direction, but the telco failed to adhere to the direction.
“Glo should not embark on and also discontinue any promotional activities that could directly or indirectly degrade the quality of service on its network for a period of ninety days in the first instance,” NCC noted.
He explained that the amount escalated to the tune of N5 million due to inability of Globacom to pay initial penalty of N500,000 each day the fine has been unpaid.
“… Despite the expiration of the 14-day period within which Globacom should have paid the fine, it has failed, refused and neglected to pay the fine. Apart from the additional N500,000.00 (five hundred thousand naira) to be paid by Globacom for everyday the fine remains unpaid.”
NCC further affirmed that it would not attend to any regulatory request made by Globacom during this period, just as it warned that the Commission would not condone any flagrant refusal to comply with its directions by a licensee.
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