Encomium
Federal Government’s plan to formulate a policy to checkmate monopoly, anti-competitive behaviour especially among business practices has been considered by Nigerians as cheery news. In its draft copy of the National Competitive and Consumer Protection Policy, the Federal Government wants to implement the legislation to safeguard interest of the consumers. According to Mr. Olusegun Aganga, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, the new policy will help address cartel-like organisations, anti-competitive tendencies, protect the investing public and consumers, and enable consumers to buy the goods and services they want at the best possible prices. “Nigeria”, the minister said, ‘Is one of the very few countries that did not have a robust legal and regulatory framework to govern consumer protection and competition.”
Few Nigerians who have applauded the move said it is the right thing to do to protect the rights of the consumers. Kehinde Yusuf, 53, cited practices of Pay TV operators in Nigeria as one which needs urgent attention. “I am a subscriber to one of the pay TV companies, and I have severally complained about being cut off two, sometimes three days before expiration of my subscription date, whenever I make this complaint nothing is done, so if Government wants to introduce that policy I think it would do well to address some of these issues.” Obinna Nwokennaya said, “where a customer fails to pay subscription fee on or before due date, it takes these pay TV company hours, if not days, to come back to transmission, which is very wrong.”
John Ugbe, Managing Director, Multichoice Nigeria Limited in a recent interview in commemoration of Multichoice’s 20 years celebration in the Nigerian market said. “It is in order to serve the people that we have different menu that subscribers can choose at certain amount. Content, unfortunately, is not paid for in minutes”. Despite its bouquet of channels, Multichoice was forced to cut down its price with its introduction of GoTv. Entrant of Star Times, a Chinese owned pay DTT rivaled Multichoice as a major challenger in Nigeria. Star Times General Manager, Justin Zhang, in December 2013 stated that since its launch in July 2010, the company has recorded over 1.5 million customers. This statistics significantly proved the potential of low-cost Pay TV. It is this desire for robust competitiveness that created a sigh of relief for consumers in the telecommunication sector. It is expected that with the recent introduction of the Federal Government policy this will address and encourage competition in the domestic market as well as maximize consumer welfare.
