Telcos Allay Fear Of Service Disruption Over Diesel Price Increment

Telecommunications operators under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), have allayed the fear of disruption of services that may be occasioned as a result of the shortage of diesel and the alarming prices of the commodity.

Speaking on this development, the Chairman of ALTON, Gbenga Adebayo acknowledged how the alarming diesel prices have influenced the sudden surge in the cost of operations for telcos, he assured members of the public of uninterrupted services from them.

His words: “The diesel situation is a problem at this time. We are doing all that we can to ensure the business continues as usual in all cases and other every circumstance. The assurance for the public is that there would not be a time of outage because of the current diesel crisis. What I cannot assure is that at some point there may not be a consideration for some form of tariff review.

“I cannot guarantee that it will not happen sometime in the near future. I cannot guarantee that. But as it stands today, I will reassure the public that there would be no disruption of continuous service at all times.

“We will continue to solve the problem to the best of our ability. We certainly need to approach the government for some intervention at some point. We are where we are. All that we are doing at this time is to ensure there are no disruptions to service.”

Speaking further, Adebayo hinted that the telcos may increase their data, SMS, and call tariffs.

“The cost of procurement of the diesel itself has gone up significantly. We are actually in a very bad situation. And how this will play in end-user pricing requires us to follow the right channel, the regulatory procedure for conveying our complaint to the regulator,” he added.