The President of the Nigerian Senate, Ahmad Lawan, is furious with Multichoice, owners of DSTV, at the moment.
In March of 2022, Multichoice Nigeria announced that it was embarking on yet another price hike of its various bouquets in the Nigerian market, citing inflation and the rising cost of its operations.
The company also announced that it would kick-off a new price regime on April 1, 2022.
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And true to its promise, that new price regime has since taken effect.
Lawmakers had warned the Pay TV company about hiking prices at a time of hardship for millions of Nigerians, but Multichoice had gone past caring about what legislators think.
While inaugurating a seven-member Adhoc Committee of the Senate, headed by Deputy Chief Whip, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, Senate President Lawan warned that no foreign operators in the country should take Nigeria for granted.
“No operator should take us for granted. We mean business. We want you to be here. Nigeria always provides the climate for you to do your businesses but don’t abuse the laws of our country,” the senate president warned.
“Our consumers here are people who are innocent and we are prepared to protect them.
“Meanwhile, stay action. No increase. No increase. And that is to say don’t dare our country. No increase in tariffs.
“The reason for setting up this adhoc committee is well known and this is consistent with what we are supposed to do as members of parliament, as distinguished senators.
“When the legitimate interests of our people are threatened, we are supposed to ensure that we protect them.
“It has been the practice of many companies, especially foreign companies operating in Nigeria to treat the Nigerian consumers of their products in a different way and manner that is not consistent with global best practices.
“I am not going to preempt the outcome of this investigation but one thing is clear, that the Senate is prepared to go all the way to unearth the exact situation that is happening with respect to how much Nigerian consumers of the DStv or Pay-TV tariffs are charged and how does that compare to other jurisdictions in other countries,” Lawan said.
The senate president added that;
“DStv, one of the operators, has shown the tendency to increase the tariffs without due consultation with stakeholders and we feel this is not the right way to go about it and therefore we even need to find out whether or not what we are paying already is not out of the roof and different from what other countries are charged.
“So your task as a committee is to look at the issue very dispassionately with a very clear mind and focus on what we need to know.
“The Consumers Protection Council and other agencies of government and even NGOs and CSOs are supposed to attend this kind of investigation. We need to know what roles such government institutions, established for the purposes of protecting Nigerian consumers, perform. What are their problems if they are not doing well?
“The report, at the end of the day, is supposed to be a report that will guide the Senate to take resolutions that will ensure that Nigerian consumers of the products, Pay-TV, are fully protected but at the same time that will not emasculate the businesses. We want to see a win-win situation for both consumers and operators.
“But let me be very clear at this point, we are going to take on any operators who decide to charge Nigerians tariffs that are not charged anywhere outside this country.
“I also want to add here that any operators, especially foreign, who do not want to respect and obey our laws, should leave. After all, it is only in this country that most of these operators behave the way they do, whether they are telecoms or DStv or whatever.
“In other climes, they do better. They respect the consumers. They respect the laws of the countries where they operate. It is only in Nigeria where they don’t give us any respect and I think we will take them on.”
