The National Communications Authority (NCA) is inviting the public to comment on its draft Guidelines to ensure transparency in all telecoms tariffs as well as terms and conditions.
The Draft Guidelines on the Publication & Notification of Tariff and Terms & Conditions has been published on the website of the NCA and can be found here, and the public is expected to read and provide their comments via email to info@nca.org.gh by March 8, 2024.
The purpose of these Guidelines is to enforce Section 25 (5) of the Electronic Communications Act, 2008 (ACT 775), which empowers the NCA to ensure that telcos/service providers publish the prices, terms, and conditions for all their services as specified by the Authority.
These published details are to be recognised as the lawful prices, terms, and conditions for the services under the same Act and the conditions of the licence,” the NCA said.
Justification
Apart from their default tariffs/rate for calls, SMS and data, all the telcos have all kinds of bundles and packages, which they claim, are designed to ensure affordability and value for money for customers.
Some of the packages offer what the telcos claim to be free call minutes and SMS. But very often its gets very confusing for customers to know whether they are really getting value for money, particularly in instances where the so-called affordable packages have very short expiry periods.
Telcos and their third-party content providers are also in the practice of signing subscribers on to some paid services without the consent of the customers and that ends up eating up customers’ airtime, often on their blind side.
According to the NCA, the guidelines, therefore, provides a structured framework for telcos offering mobile services to end users to disclose essential tariff information.
Additionally, the guidelines defines the transparency criteria of terms and conditions (T&Cs) from an end user perspective as T&Cs for tariff plans that are available for the end users need to fulfil certain minimum criteria in order to be complete and transparent.
This means it only refers to the T&C that need to be published,” it said.
The NCA said it considers public involvement in, and information about regulatory activities to be a foundation for strong, fair and transparent regulation of the electronic communications industry.
The Authority further recognizes the public’s interest in the proper regulation of electronic communications activities and provide opportunities for citizens to be heard,” it added.
In pursuance of Section 4.1 of the National Telecommunication Policy (2005) and Section 5(h) of the National Communications Authority Act, 2008 (ACT 769), therefore, the Authority invites views and comments on the Draft Guidelines for the Publication & Notification of Tariff and Terms & Conditions (Business Rules), accessible on the Authority’s website (www.nca.org.gh).
It said the public consultation commences on 29th January, 2024 and concludes on 8th March, 2024. All responses/comments should be electronically sent as e-mail attachments, in Microsoft word format to info@nca.org.gh. All respondents are also requested to complete a response cover sheet (Annex A).
The NCA wishes to state that in furtherance of transparency and openness, the Authority shall consider all responses as non-confidential. Consequently, all submissions will be published on the NCA website upon receipt,” it said.