4 telcos seek injunction to stop NCA from taking ¢34 million fine

Four mobile network operators in the country have filed an injunction to stop the National Communications Authority (NCA) from executing the 34 million-cedi fine against them.

The injunction which was filed at the Electronic Communications Tribunal, has led to the adjournment of the case to January 28.

The tribunal is expected to make a ruling on the injunction application at its second hearing before it can proceed to deal with the substantive case.

Airtel-Tigo, Glo, MTN and Vodafone are before the three member tribunal with a petition challenging the basis of the fine. They are praying the tribunal to nullify the fine imposed on them by the NCA for alleged poor network services.

But the NCA also insist that the four network operators were sanctioned for their non-compliance with various Quality of Service (QoS) requirements.

The Electronic Communications Tribunal, established by the Electronic Communications Act 2008, Act 775 is mandated under the law to consider appeals brought by telecom industry players against decisions or orders made by the NCA or to review a particular matter under a license and decisions of the Dispute Resolution Committee of the Authority.

The telecom providers who seem not to be clear with the action taken by the NCA, are taking advantage of the Act to seek redress at the tribunal.

MTN, Glo, Airtel-Tigo, and Vodafone were last year fined a total of GH¢34,065,000 by the NCA for poor services to consumers, and were given December, 10, 2018 as deadline for payment.

AirtelTigo is to pay GH¢11,635,000, Glo, GH¢4,460,000, MTN GH¢9,080,000 and Vodafone GH¢8,890,000.

In a statement released in November last years, the NCA noted that it undertook a quality of Service monitoring in the Greater Accra, Eastern, Western, Northern Regions and two districts in the Ashanti Region in the phase one of a nationwide monitoring exercise.

This exercise according to the NCA, enabled the Authority to determine the MNOs which were unable to meet their Licence Key Performance Indicators in some District Capitals.