The National Publicity Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Benson Upah, has said there was no reason for the increased telecommunication tariffs.
Henzodaily reports that Comrade Upah said telecommunications service providers in the early days of operation made enough profit to repair their infrastructure.
In an interview with Arise News, the NLC spokesman stated that with an increase in several service subscribers, there was no justification for increasing the tariff.
He accused the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) of colliding with telecom service providers to inflate tariffs without logical consideration.
His words, “First and foremost, let me remind you that, about a week or so ago, I had the opportunity of appearing before you to explain to you, the reason why a 50%, tariff hike was untenable. I did say it was a case of, corporate, greed aided and abetted by a complicit regulator, the NCC. I did argue that, the penetration of telecom services as it were today has since risen from zero to 75%. And if the logic of the market volume determining the cost of the unit, we have no reason paying even our present rates. Okay.
“So we were expected to have paid something much larger than we were doing let alone this 50%. This insane hike, it is unjustifiable, it is unreasonable, and it is a case of murder. This is a case of mass murder because I tell you businesses are gonna come crashing down. Individuals are not gonna be able to run their lives as they used to.
“Let me also take you down, a memory lane. In the early 2000s when these entities came in, they made a whole lot of money. In fact, I did mention that MTN alone was making more money than our first four banks put together. So what did they do with all of that money? They took the money away or they didn’t invest the money and all of that.”