The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has refuted reports by one of Nigeria’s media platforms, which claimed that the commission had approved the proposal for a 40% increase in tariffs for services rendered by telecommunications service providers beginning in January 2025.
The reports claimed that this will translate into N15.40 per minute for telephone calls and N5.60 for Short Message Service (SMS). It added that data bundles, 1GB data plan will cost a minimum of N1400.
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This threat of tariff hike raised concerns about the impact this will have on the telecom service consumers who are already overstretched by the increasing hardship in the country amid poor purchasing power of the citizens compounded by higher prices for basic commodities and services.
However, a source from the NCC, who spoke to a Newspaper, said the purported reports about tariff increase “is fake news, spurious and the figment of the imagination of the author of the news.”
The source said that NCC has a well-known procedure for price increases for telecoms services. However, the commission’s regulatory power, as contained in the 2003 NCC Act, does not permit it to do so until it has conducted wider consultation with industry stakeholders based on the “cost-based study,” which will provide the empirical validity for the recommendation. This is done to protect consumers’ interests.
This line of action, he added, will look into the current economic realities of the country based on the macroeconomic variables such as inflation and exchange rate. He stressed that the board of the NCC has a role to play in the matter after wider consultation before any action can be taken.
He therefore assured that at the moment no such action has taken place and no such approval has been given by the commission for the purported hike in tariffs on telecoms services. He advised the public to ignore the report because it is untrue.
In the last couple of years telecom operators have mounted pressure on the commission for a tariff increase, which according to them is in consonance with the current operating business environment in Nigeria.