Telecommunication firms threatened to withdraw unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) and sue banks should they (banks) fail to remit the N120 billion debts owed to them.
The chairman, Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Mr Gbenga Adebayo issued the threat while addressing journalists in Lagos at the weekend.
“I think it is just best to withdraw the services. On this issue of USSD debt, if parties have to go to court to get a final resolution, so be it. This is because every effort that is being made by everyone, where we move one step forward, several steps backward, is not going to work.
“This is a commercial agreement that went sour. This agreement has a provision for third-party intervention, whether arbitration or heading for the court of law. If it is allowed to take its own life, parties will decide where to go. Instead of going to meetings in Abuja with the minister or the CBN, parties would decide where to go according to the agreement,” he said
Adebayo noted that the matter is commercial and it is appropriate to withdraw the service.
He, however, said political interference has ensured that telcos have not been able to enforce the commercial terms.
“So when you open commercial agreement to political interference, you get into this kind of problem. That is why we say emphatically that some issues, including price review, should be left to market forces, not to be determined by government because it is not sustainable,” he stated
Adebayo further said the minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, had recently empathised with the telecommunication companies.
He quoted the minister as saying that banks should not expect free service as there are costs to every service rendered.
Recall that the erstwhile executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof Umar Danbatta had said at a forum in Lagos that the banks’ debts to the telecommunication companies affects financial inclusion in no small way.
He said without the telecommunication services Nigeria would not be where it is today.
He told the banks to pay the telcos saying “no service is free.”
