Debts from use of MNOs platforms for USSD
Telecommunications giant MTN has warned that companies in the industry would be forced to close down unless the Federal Government approves an upward review of telecoms charges in the country.
“MTN and the entire industry are in a dire situation. MTN is loss-making because of the naira devaluation. The fundamentals need to change, tariffs have to be changed,” MTN’s CEO, Karl Toriola, said on Monday while speaking at Fellows of Media Innovation, MiP, sponsored by MTN at the Pan Africa University, Lekki, Lagos.
Besides, he asked the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, to facilitate the immediate payment of the N250bn naira debt owed to mobile network operators for the use of their platforms for USSD.
He said unless the authorities of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, moved swiftly to resolve the issue, Mobile Network Operators would be forced to stop USSD services.
The debt, according to industry sources, stemmed from the use of USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) of the MNOs for payments and other transactions by banks and other sources.
He traced the ongoing challenges in the industry to the complete deregulation of the downstream oil sector, which has led to an increase in the pump price of petrol to over N1,000 in the country.
“Similarly, electricity tariffs have kissed the skies with the removal of electricity subsidies and the grouping of customers into bands by the power distribution companies (DisCos). There should be no delusion, if the tariff doesn’t go up we will shut down,” he warned.
He explained that the base transceiver stations (BTS) of the MNOs are powered by diesel and gas in the absence of a dependable power supply from the national grid, which has been suffering from epilepsy.
Toriola said the company used to be one of the highest payers of corporate income tax to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), adding however that it has gone down to zero since the company stopped making a profit.
The MTN CEO said the company has been surviving because it is spending its savings, saying the industry is living on borrowed time. “We must return the industry to profitability,” he said.
