Lagos, May 13, 2023 – Telecom operators have threatened to disconnect banks defaulting in payment of their debts for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) services amounting over N120 billion.
The telecom operators, under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), gave the threat on Friday.
In a statement signed by Gbenga Adebayo, its chairman, the group said it had secured the approval of the National Communications Commission (NCC) to take such action.
It said that this was because the banks had continued to incur more debts, without making the commensurate payments, in spite of multiparty effort to resolve the situation and prevent any negative impact on their services.
It said the multiparty stakeholder effort was led by Prof. Isa Ali Pantami, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, the NCC and the Central Bank of Nigeria,
The association said that each time some progress was made, the banks would come up with reasons to take stakeholders several steps back on this matter.
It said they had had protracted disagreements on issues of appropriate USSD pricing model for financial transactions, transparency of charges, mode of collection and liability for payment of the outstanding and continuous service fees.
“It is obvious that the level of debt is unsustainable given the time/value huge cost of the continuous upgrade and operation of the systems and infrastructure dedicated to supporting USSD transactions of banks,” it said.
The association stressed that defaulting banks would be disconnected unless they met their debt obligations. (GBN)
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