The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that false speculations surrounding the sale of 9Mobile has reduced the telecommunications company’s subscribers log from 21 million to 17 million.
Executive Vice Chairman, Nigeria Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta said this during an interview with newsmen on Thursday in Lagos.
Represented by the Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management, NCC, Mr Sunday Dare, Prof. Danbatta explained that the telecommunications operator’s customers, which was 20,521,952 as at January 2017 reduced to 17,075,813 as November 2017.
Danbatta said that contrary to reports that Teleology had emerged the preferred bidder for the company, NCC had not been informed of any new owner of 9Mobile.
He said that the interim board of 9Mobile was yet to communicate to NCC who the winner was and that was because the process was still on going.
”There are two regulators involved in the issue, the financial and telecommunications regulators.
”Unless the financial process is complete, the licensing process does not really kick in.
”Until then and until we have evidence of the final report, these speculations will not do the brand any good, it will not do the subscribers any good.
”And because of all the unconfirmed reports, subscriber base of 9Mobile dropped from 21 million to 17 million.
”We just need to wait for another 30 to 40 days to have a clarity on true situation,” he said.
According to him, the CBN and NCC were carrying out their oversight duties in order to make sure that 9Mobile does not sink.
”In that process which began several months back, we have saved 4,000 jobs and saved 9mobile from crashing and we kept up other creditors that have been working with them.
”Now we have come thus far, and there are several litigations going and we have to be careful,” he said.
Dare said that Capital Trustees and 9Mobile interim board had the powers to guard the sale processes to a logical conclusion.
Meanwhile, the industry regulator has said the company(ies) found guilty of Call Masking scam will definitely not be slapped in the wrist as the commission will weigh-in with sanction or suspension respectively to serve as deterrent for others.
Danbatta said before February 8- this year- the commission will make known the respective sanctions on the six interconnect clearing house companies recently named for voice rate and masking fraud in the industry.
He said, “The deadline the Commission gave the six companies was January 31-this year- and i can tell you that we are reviewing the responses of the Interconnect Clearinghouses on the allegations of call masking.
“Based on their responses, the Commission will determine which of the licenses would either be suspended or sanctioned. For us, revocation would be the last resort because we want to ensure that the telecom industry remains healthy.
“The Interconnect Clearinghouses are presently cooperating with us. We might see some suspensions and sanctions in the next one week, but I don’t see the revocation happening because we want to work with them, we don’t want to see any stress in the telecom industry.”
Masked call is the practice of causing the telephone network to indicate to the receiver of a call that the originator of the call is a station other than the true originating station. For example, a Caller ID display might display a phone number different from that of the telephone from which the call was placed. The term is commonly used to describe situations in which the motivation is considered malicious.
The Nigerian Communications Commission is investigating the Interconnect Clearinghouses namely: Medallion Communications Limited, Interconnect Cleaning House Nigeria Limited, Niconnx Communication Limited, Breeze Micro Limited, Solid Interconnectivity and Exchange Telecommunications Limited, as a result of security implications of call masking to Nigeria as a country.
