ECOWAS imposes sanctions on Niger junta, demands reinstatement of President Bazoum - ITREALMS.

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The Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS has demanded for the immediate release and reinstatement of President Mohamed Bazoum as the legitimate Head of State and Government of the Republic of Niger, reports ITREALMS.

In a communique at the end of the Extraordinary Summit on Socio-Political Situation in the Republic of Niger read by the President, ECOWAS Commission, Dr Omar Touray, the leaders also rejected any form of purported resignation by President Bazoum and declared him as the only recognised and elected President by ECOWAS, the African Union and the international community.

ACSIS president wants sanctions for erring tech giants in Africa – ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The President of the African Civil Society on the Information Society (ACSIS), Dr. Cisse Kane has called on African leaders to leverage technology by ensuring that erring industry giants on the continent are sanctioned as obtainable in other parts of the world, reports ITREALMS.

Speaking at the opening business and civil society forum on Monday at the week-long Africa eCommerce Week in Nairobi, Kenya, Dr. Kane lamented that despite violation by some technology giants lately, without any reactions from any African leaders or governments.

According to him, technology laws as it pertain to consumers, for instance, is not much difference when it comes to Africa, so he does not get it when African consumers are exploited by international technology companies without any representation from the continent’s leaders.

Those largely affected by this lack of concern are the youth and women.

ITREALMS recalled that a few weeks ago, Brussels, headquarters the European Union (EU), had warned Facebook it will face sanctions unless it changes what the European commission calls its “misleading” terms and conditions.

As said by the EU commissioner-in-charge of consumer protection, Věra Jourová, EU had run out of patience with the social network technology company, after nearly two years of discussions aimed at giving Facebook’s European users more information about how their data is used, declaring “Progress is not enough for me, I want to see results.”

Facebook has been given until the end of this year, 2018, to change its terms of service, as EU insisted, “Facebook will face sanctions from national authorities. They will look into sanctions after the new year in case they do not see sufficient progress.”

For him, sanctions on some of the international technology firms will help in supporting youth innovation in Africa.

The Africa eCommerce Week is hosted until Friday, December 15, 2018 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development at the conference centre of the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya.

Remmy Nweke in Nairobi/ED Ops

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Call Masking: NCC sanctions clearing houses, bars 750,000 PNL, LEO numbers

ITREALMS:

… Immediate disconnect of ICSL, SISL

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has sanctioned some interconnect clearing houses licensees for alleged call-masking, call-refiling and SIM-Boxing, with immediate disconnection of Information Connectivity Solutions Limited (ICSL) and Solid Interconnectivity Services Limited from all networks, reports ITRealms.

This, ITRealms gathered, is coming as the Commission also barred over 750,000 numbers assigned to PrivateNetwork Links (PNL) and Local Exchange Operator (LEO) licensees, found to be aiding and abating this unwholesome practice.

Director, Public Affairs Department of NCC, Mr. Tony Ojobo, confirmed this to ITRealms, Tuesday, saying they were recently inundated with complaints from service providers and consumers regarding the high incidence of call-masking, call-refiling and SIM-Boxing, hence they have to take action.

Generally, he defined the practice complained of as “disguising international calls as local calls in order to profit from price differentials between international and local calls. Apart from the resultant loss of revenue by service providers, the practice some also has negative security implications.”

He also said that this follow a painstaking investigation process which included collaboration with the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) and the Department of State Services, the Commission has imposed a range of sanctions on licensees involved in the fraudulent practice.

The sanctions, he said include the suspension of the Interconnect Clearinghouse License issued to Medallion Communications Limited for a period of 90 (ninety) days, in the first instance; Issuance of a strong warning to Interconnect Clearinghouse Nigeria Limited; Disconnection of Information Connectivity Solutions Limited (ICSL) and Solid Interconnectivity Services Limited from all networks, until they regularize their operations.

In addition, Ojobo told ITRealms that NCC issued letters of caution to three other licensees, namely the Exchange Telecoms Limited, NiconnX Limited and Breeze Micro Limited, warning them against engaging in the fraudulent practice, whereas, barring over 750,000 numbers assigned to several Private Network Links (PNL) and Local Exchange Operator (LEO) licensees, which number ranges were found to have been utilized for the practice.

The sanctioned entities, NCC spokesman said in a press statement made available to ITRealms, were found to be directly and indirectly complicit in several infractions, including, covertly allowing organisations with expired licences to transit calls, failure to undertake due diligence on parties seeking to interconnect, deliberately turning a blind eye to masking infractions by interconnect partners, and using a licence issued to another organisation to bring-in and terminate international calls which were masked as local calls to other operators.

On the barring of numbers, he reiterated that over 750,000 individual numbers across the nation, made up of about 31 number ranges have been barred.

NCC further said that licensees whose numbers have been barred are Vezeti Communications Services Limited, Voix Networks Limited, Mobitel Limited, Peace Global Satellite Communications Limited, ABG Communications Limited, Vodacom Business Africa (Nigeria) Limited, Swift Telephone Networks Limited, QVODA Telecoms Limited, Wireless Telecoms Limited and Emcatel Networks Limited.

According to NCC, culprits were found to be terminating millions of minutes, whereas they only have very few active customers.

“The Commission is pleased to note that the incidence of call masking has significantly reduced since it commenced a multi-faceted approach to address the menace,” he said.

Insisting that the actions so far taken by NCC, were just the first stage of the exercise, stressing that the second stage which has now commenced, will focus on the Mobile Network Operators and other persons involved in SIM-Boxing.

“The aim of the Commission is to completely stamp out the fraudulent practice in the overall interest of all Nigerians. Accordingly, every service provider that has been sanctioned still has an opportunity to correct the identified anomalies and satisfy the Commission that it should be allowed to continue to operate in Nigeria.

“The Commission reserves the right to revoke the licence of such service providers where they fail to take the necessary corrective measures,” NCC declared.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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QoS fine rises to N1.77bn: NCC says no payment, no dialogue

… As meeting ended in deadlock

The four-sanctioned operators of Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications in Nigeria to the tune of N1.17billion over poor quality of service (QoS), have been told to pay the fine first before the regulator could grant them any audience.

This is coming as latest development, shows that the fine has further accumulated N60 million as at the time of filing this report for the failure of operators to meet the May 25 deadline for payment of initial fine.

ITRealmsOnline recalls that on May 11, 2012, the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) penalised the four major GSM operators with a fine of N1.17 billion for failure to keep to the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) test set out by the telecom regulator for the months of March and April 2012.

The details of the penalties hitherto communicated to these operators showed that MTN Nigeria Communications and Etisalat would pay the sum of N360,000,000m each, while Airtel is to pay the sum of N270,000,000m; followed by Globacom with the sum of N180,000,000m.

All the operators are to pay the penalties on or before May 25, 2012 or be liable to payment of additional N2,500,000, per day for as long as the contravention persists.

As at the time of filing this report, it was not clear any of the operators made payment into NCC’s account, thereby amounting to six days since the expiration of the duration for payment, which calculation is N15,000,000m per operator and totaling N60m as at Thursday.

Although, ITRealmsOnline gathered that operator’s efforts to get NCC shift grounds in a meeting Wednesday ended in a deadlock, with Commission insisting the fine must be paid first before any further audience could be granted them on any issue.

Speaking to newsmen after the meeting between NCC and foursome operators, at the Commission headquarters in Abuja, Director, Public Affairs of NCC, Mr. Tony Ojobo, who was present at the session unambiguously declared that the Commission would not give audience to any meeting with the operators until the aforementioned fines are cleared off the table.

“We will not discuss further actions or entertain any further meeting on this matter until sanctions are complied with,” he asserted.

Ojobo who was accompanied by Head, Media and Public Relations, Mr. Reuben Muoka and Mr. Okoh Aihe; who is the Special Adviser to the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) at NCC explained that initially NCC was firm not to have any discussion with the service providers until the penalties are paid but on a second thought the management felt that there was need to listen to the service providers to see if there were going to be any new issues to be raised in regard to the issue of sanction.

He also said that the meeting attracted all the Chief Executive Officer (CEO’s) of the affected GSM operators, eventually, the operators did not come to the table with new points or challenges.

“They mentioned the issues of power, cable cuts and multiple-taxation and all of that. These challenges are not new to the Commission,” he said, but lamented that they have been repetitive on the issue of Quality of Service, which has been in discussion for six years until January 2012, when the QoS guidelines were gazette.

This, Ojobo said empowers NCC to apply sanctions to the service providers that could not meet the KPIs as indicated in the guidelines.

As at March, he said, “we still didn’t see any noticeable improvement rather we observed very, very, poor Quality of service on all the networks.”

He emphasised that the aftermath of meeting service providers who requested the Commission to review its position on latest sanctions was that there was no need to review the sanctions in the sense that these key performance indicators have not been met and because our Quality of Service guidelines have specified that there will be penalties where these KPI are not been met and therefore the Commission is not going to change its position and indeed the CEO of NCC said, there would not be any further discussions until the penalties are paid.

According to him, as matter of fact the meeting was to give the benefit of the doubt to service providers to see if there are going to be any new issues that could come up or indicate to NCC the plans they have for the improvement on the Quality of Service, but at the end, “the position of NCC still stands and the sanctions and penalties will have to be paid.”

Ojobo pointed out that since the penalty has entered the default period from the May 26, “counting from that date to anytime payment is made; it is 2.5 million per day.”

He emphasised that NCC has to make a distinction between compensation and fine, stressing that a sanction is a fine and fines are paid to government and compensation is paid to subscribers.

“What the guideline specified is fine and that fine is paid to government through the Commission. The issue of compensation has to do with specific infractions on consumers for which the consumers have made representation to the service providers,” he submitted.

Remmy Nweke

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