MTN Under Fire

Services of Ghanaâ's leading mobile telecommunication service provider MTN, has come under strong criticism in the Northern part of the country. Long standing subscribers of the telecommunication industry described the Mobile Telecommunication Network as 'Most Terrible Network' (MTN) in recent times.

Apart from inability of subscribers to get their calls through especially at crucial times daily, the last straw that broke the camel's back and a testament case was a total blackout of the MTN services in the Tamale Metropolis between the hours of somewhere 18:00GMT and 20:30GMT last Monday March 9, 2009.

A pressure group called Concerned Consumer Protection Association in Tamale made up of MTN subscribers have threatened to hit the streets any time soon to protest against what it described as the company's poor service delivery over the past months.

'We demand an urgent and unconditional improvement in the services of the MTN Company now or else we will heat the streets to hold the management accountable for the headache we have been subjected to in the three regions of the north,â' the group' warned.

The group also hinted that it would have no option but to seek legal redress if MTN fails to address the recurring problem of call failure and other needless hindrances that have engulfed the regions for some time now.

Addressing a well attended news conference in Tamale, Mubarik Osman, spokesperson of the group complained that subscribers of MTN have for sometime now been subjected to unnecessary hitches which in his estimation are greatly affecting socio-economic activities in the region.

'For a month or more now customers of MTN in the three Northern regions have been receiving the worst form of poor services ever known in the history of the mobile telecommunication industry in Ghana ,” he stated.

According to Mr Mubarik, MTN is likely to lose majority of its numerous subscribers to other service providers in the system if it continues with its recent poor services.

The spokesperson made specific reference to “Error in connection,” “Mobile number cannot be reached at the moment,” and “Network failure” as some of the jargons coined by MTN to “dupe” its customers.

Mr Mubarik thereby made a passionate appeal to the National Media Commission to perform its core duty of ensuring that communication service providers operating in Ghana live up to expectation.

He assured the general public that the group will widen its tentacles to uncover and deal with other utility service providers and other related organizations operating in the region who have taken customers for granted over the years.

Contacts made in other areas revealed that the problem is not limited to Tamale alone but has indeed affected the three regions of the north.

Checks by this reporter showed similar poor service by MTN almost across the country. The question now is what happened to the injunction on the company not to continue selling its chips to subscribers till it improves upon its services.

Another question bothering minds of subscribers is, what are the country’s legislators doing about this situation since this is not the first time such an issue has come to public domain?

Why are Ghanaians taken for granted by this “Most Terrible Network” (MTN) whiles policy makers seem unconcerned?

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