Four telcos pay NCA penalty
Four of the five telecom companies which were fined by the National Communication Authority for poor service delivery have paid a total of GH¢950,000 to the Authority.
The payment followed a strict directive from the Ministry of Communications which gave them 24 hours to pay up or face sanctions.
The four companies are MTN, the market leader in the telecom industry in Ghana, tiGO, Vodafone and Airtel, all multinationals.
Although the Director-General of the NCA, Mr Paarock Vanpercy, failed to mention the fifth industry player which was yet to fully comply with the directive, the Daily Graphic reports that Expresso, which was fined GH¢350,000, had paid part of the amount and subsequently pleaded for time to enable it to settle its penalty in full.
MTN, which maintains its lead as the country’s biggest mobile phone company with about 10 million subscribers, representing about 48.55 per cent of the market as of the end of September this year, was fined GH¢300,000. Its poor quality service was noticed in the Upper East, Upper West, Greater Accra and Brong Ahafo regions.
Airtel, the country’s fourth largest telecom operator, suffered the heaviest fine of GH¢350,000, whilst Expresso, whose subscriber base dipped from 244,674 in January to 206,606 in August this year, defaulted in its service quality in the Western, Greater Accra and Brong Ahafo regions.
Vodafone, which also defaulted in its service quality in the Western, Greater Accra and Brong Ahafo regions, was fined GH¢150,000 and the second largest operator, tiGO, was fined GH¢100,000 for defaulting in the Western and the three northern regions.
According to the Daily Graphic, when enquired from the telcos why they paid the penalties, after contesting the technical methodology used by the NCA in arriving at its results, they openly declined comment, except to say that they paid up under protest.They further indicated that they were in negotiations over the matter with the industry regulator.
Accra, May 17, 2012
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