" ITREALMS: Stop vandalizing telco’s facilities – Senators

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Stop vandalizing telco’s facilities – Senators

CHAIRMAN, Senate Committee on Communications, Senator Sylvester Anyanwu has tasked Nigerians to desist from vandalizing telecommunications facilities in the country, reports CHARLES OKOH.

Anyanwu made this charge when he led an eight-man team from the committee on a tour of MTN Nigeria facilities in Lagos, as part of its oversight function on telecommunications companies in the country.

He also said this act would only make it difficult for tariff to reduce as it cost a lot of money to replace these equipments.

Senator Anyanwu appealed to traditional rulers, legislators, and all stakeholders to ensure that these installations are protected as they are meant to serve the communities.

The Senate, he said, wants an end to this kind of attitude so as to improve the quality of service on the nation’s telecom networks and even extend this services to other parts of the country where it’s still lacking.

“Apparent quality problems can be caused by vandalisation in the delivery of communication services, particularly, voice telephony and the persistent complaints by majority of the Nigerian telecoms customers,” he reasoned.

He added that the Senate is interested in optimization plans submitted by the operators in response to the request by the respective national and state assembly committees on communications.

Expressing satisfaction that MTN is engaging about 95 per cent Nigerians, he advised that this should be sustained and improved on.

He also expressed delight his team that MTN is heeding the call for more Nigerian shareholders just as he promised that the Communications Act 2003 is being looked into to ensure a more conducive operational environment for the telcos.

The Senate, he said, will ensure that the management of MTN keeps to its promise to ensure remarkable improvement of the quality of service by the end of June 2008.

He regretted the failure of power supply across the country as he said this would make investment in the country expensive.

The tour which took the Senators to MTN Network Monitoring Centre (NMC), Ojota, Matori warehouse and the call centres at Apapa and Ikoyi in Lagos, saw the Chief Executive Officer, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Ahmad Farroukh and other to management team conducting the visitors round the facilities visited.

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