From Daniel Edem and Jane Nwaoriaku, Enugu
The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) has said that it has reduced the number of complaints emanating from telecom consumers in the country.
The Head of Zonal Operations, Department of NCC, Mrs. Helen Obi, who made this known yesterday in Enugu during a road show to sensitise telecom consumers on their rights and privileges regarding the quality of services received from the telecom operators, said the reduction was due to high level consumer education and awareness campaigns mounted by the commission.
Mrs. Obi was happy that the efforts of the commission on consumer awareness campaigns over the years are beginning to pay off. She said NCC was mindful of the challenges that consumers are having, particularly over receiving unsolicited text messages on their phones, advising those having such experiences to type STOP and send to 2442 or HELP to a special toll free line, 622 to have the complaints addressed.
She also dismissed misconceptions in some quarters that telecom masts and towers cause cancer, saying, “we want to disabuse their mind that there are no scientific proof to that because the masts and towers don’t cause any sickness.
“The impact we have made is that the awareness creation has really made a positive impact in the sense that the level of complaints or the magnitude of complaints we are receiving hitherto before we launched this NCC 2017 Year of the Telecom Consumer has reduced drastically.
“And we see on a daily basis that even on the forum we hold, the consumer will come testifying that oh!, now that they are not receiving it (unsolicited message) again or that they are aware and they know what to do or how to channel their complaints if in the event that they complained to their service provider and nothing is done about that complaints or they are not satisfied the way the service provider tried to address the complaint they now know that they can complain to the commission.
“So the impact has been very tremendous. There has been massive awareness and the consumers are also keying in and as a result translating to reduction in the number and magnitude of complaints the commission has been receiving. It has also put the operators on their toes, making sure that on quality of service, they are doing everything the commission expects them to do to make sure there is improved quality of service on their networks,” she said.