Juwah reassures on telecom quality service delivery

The Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah has assured telecommunication consumers in the country of high service delivery in the coming years.

Juwah gave this assurance at a one-day first open forum of the Industry Consumer Advisory Forum (ICAF) in Lagos.

The EVC who was represented by the executive commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Mr. Okechukwu Itanyi, reaffirmed of NCC’s commitment to ensure efficient service delivery in the country’s telecom sector.

He also assured of NCC determination to protect telecoms consumers and sundry stakeholders from unfair practices.

The event which theme was on “Service Delivery in the Telecoms Industry: Milestones, Problems and Prospects” he said, was in line with the focus of NCC as the regulator, towards ensuring that the interest of the consumer is protected at all times.

According to him, there is a paradigm shift from mere service provision towards ensuring that consumer satisfaction ranks highest in the priorities of the commission as a nation in the provision of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) goods and services and the forum earnestly seeks ways towards achieving this primary objective.

NCC, he said, is poised and would not relent in protecting the interests of the consumers, be it in facilitating investment, ensuring national spread, facilitating rural access, licensing new operators, holding consumer outreach programs and consumer parliaments, ensuring service availability, affordable and quality service parliament that would benefit targeted consumers.

He highlighted the overall objective of the Industry Consumer Advisory Forum to include acting in an advisory capacity, make recommendations to the commission regarding the interests and concerns of consumers of ICT products and services, as well as persons with disabilities and the elderly, in addition to submitting memoranda on and facilitate the review of the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.

A member of House of Representatives Committee on Communication, Hon. Lara Omidiran while commending NCC for being very active in safeguarding the interest of the consumers pointed out that ICAF members are the link between the NCC and the people.

She also explained that the customers need somebody to also be the ears and eyes to the regulator as put by her, there is no way the NCC could know everything and pledges that the law makers would continue to give the necessary support that would bring about efficient service delivery in the sector.

The chairman, Industry Consumer Advisory Forum and director general, Consumer Protection Council, Mrs. Ify Umenyi noted that the telecommunications industry in Nigeria has grown in leaps and bounds within the last 10 years of the inception of Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) services as the number of telephone lines have risen from about 400,000 to over 80 million.

Remmy Nweke
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