NCC Says Banks Owe Telcos N17bn For USSD Access

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta has said that commercial banks operating in the country owe telecommunication firms over N17bn for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, USSD,access.

This debt, according to him, accumulated following the regulator’s suspension of its determination on USSD pricing in 2019.

Danbatta disclosed this  at ATCON’s virtual forum, themed ‘Meeting the interests of government, consumers and telecoms companies in the era of Covid-19 and post COVID-19 pandemic for digital economy development’ on Thursday.

It would be recalled that in order to protect the interests of consumers and support a robust telecommunications sector, Danbatta announced that it had revised the determination on the USSD. The EVC noted that the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, had already been briefed on the development with a view to ensuring a quick settlement of the debt.

Explaining the commission’s efforts at resolving consumer-related issues, he noted that when the commission introduced the Do-Not-Disturb code in 2015, less than 500,000 people activated the code.