(Friday 14th February 2020 Issue)
Africell,
one of the leading GSM operators in the country has dismissed claims by The
Gambia Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) that (PURA) directed
Africell to immediately refund and compensate customers that were affected by
the ‘unlimited bundles’.
“I
want to make it clear to you that it was Africell that in fact put the offer
before PURA. The welfare of our customers is among our top priorities. We
decided to make sure that those customers that were affected are refunded and
we also compensated them,” Musa Ceesay, head of Corporate Affairs and Public
Relations told The Point in an interview yesterday
Africell,
he explained, has currently purchased six millions U.S. Dollars’ worth of
materials with a view to upgrade the internet connection.
“The
move is geared towards satisfying our customers. The materials are currently in
China and we will be shipping them into the country soon. I can assure you that
if the materials are in the country we will never have the issue of network
congestion. The company is the leading the GSM operations in the country. The
welfare of our loyal customers remains top development agenda for the
management of the company.”
Mr.
Ceesay continued: “In our continued efforts to ensure that all customers are
satisfied, Africell will be refunding all affected subscribers with the credit
used to buy the unlimited bundles. These customers can also continue to enjoy
the current services that they are subscribed to.”
The
recent problem that some customers were encountering recently, he added, was as
a result of congestion, while claiming that it didn’t affect large number of
people. “The matter has been solved and it will become history. The management
has put mechanism in place in ensuring that it doesn’t repeat again.”
The
only problem that Africell failed to do, he went on, was to announce that
people could not currently enjoy unlimited internet access.
He added that what Africell is offering to its
loyal customers is up to standard and it’s in fact what is happening in other
countries.
According
to him, Africell was the one that went to PURA and explained to them the
situation. “Nothing has change in terms of the unlimited bundles that we’re selling.
It’s just the name of unlimited which is change to mega bundles because most
users never reached the ceiling of what they were purchasing starting from one
MBPS to five MBPS.”
Africell
head of corporate affairs stated that they have taken into consideration of
what people are saying and that they compensated and apologised to people that
were affected. Africell, he added, is the biggest and the largest tax payer in
the country and they are contributing more than any other company.
“Our
customers believed in what we are doing and the services that we are offering
to them. We will maintain that momentum and continue doing what we are doing
especially for the development of the country,” he stated. He thus added that
554 customers were the ones affected.
Meanwhile,
PURA in it press release said they have received numerous complaints from
aggrieved subscribes pertaining to the unilateral decision by Africell to
change its unlimited bundle offering.
The
release further added that in ensuring that sanity prevails in the market and
in the “interest of ensuring consumers are adequately protect, Africell was
directed to immediately process mandatory ‘cash’ refunds to all subscribers
that subscribed to the ‘unlimited data package’ from the 1st January 2020 up to
February 11th 2020.”
