Vodafone to compensate customers

Telecom operator, Vodafone Ghana says it will compensate its customers for losses suffered during Tuesday’s nationwide network outage, which left many clients unable to make and receive calls, send text messages and browse the Internet.

“In consultation with the National Communications Authority (NCA), we will announce details of the compensation in a couple of days,” the Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone Ghana, Haris Broumidis, told the Business& Financial Times in an interview.

“We sincerely apologise to all our customers for inconvenience caused by the outage.” He explained that services to all customers have been restored and customers should be able to make and receive calls, send text messages and browse the Internet.

He added: “Vodafone assures its customers that we remain committed to ensuring improved network quality”.

When asked what caused the nationwide outage, the Chief Technology Officer, Patricia Obo-Nai, said the company is conducting a thorough investigation to understand the root cause of the outage.

“We are hopeful that at the end of this month we will present a detailed report to the industry regulator,” she added.

Vodafone Ghana is a subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc, one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies providing a range of services including voice, messaging, data and fixed communications. Vodafone Group has mobile operations in 27 countries and partners with mobile networks in 48 more, and has fixed broadband operations in 17 markets.

In a related development, the National Communication Authority says it has requested the network operator to submit a comprehensive report on the situation detailing the causes, services affected, number of consumers affected and plans to avert further such occurrences amongst others.

In addition, the Authority will engage with Vodafone to review the report and ensure that Vodafone takes steps to implement solutions to prevent such an incidence from recurring.

Concluding, the NCA will continue to work in the interests of the consumer and all stakeholders constantly.