Six-months ago, ZICTA instituted criminal proceedings against the country’s three mobile telephone service providers – Airtel, MTN-Zambia and ZAMTEL – for alleged failure to meet minimum standards of quality of service.
ZICTA sued the three mobile telephone service providers to seek remedial measures relating to enforcement of quality service pursuant to the Information and Communication Technologies Act No. 15 of 2009.
Protection of the rights and interests of consumers is one of its mandates.
ZICTA public relations manager Ngabo Nankonde said the organisation has sent the dockets to the DPP for perusal.
“The Director of Public Prosecutions had requested for the dockets for his perusal and ZICTA is, in response to the DPP’s guidance, in the meantime, dealing otherwise with the ongoing issues relating to quality of service [QoS],” Ms Nankonde said in response to a press query.
She said the authority is conducting an analysis to thoroughly determine the root cause of poor service and the need to revise the framework on provision of quality services to consumers.
“ZICTA is, in the meantime, pursuing the following: consideration of the need or otherwise of review of quality of service guidelines as a means of having an adequate, suitable and transparent Q.O.S regulatory framework, and conducting analysis to exhaustively determine the root cause of recent quality of service issues.
“We are liaising with operators to ensure the Q.O.S issues are comprehensively and exhaustively dealt with,” Ms Nankonde said.
She said, however, that the criminal proceedings route remains open for the authority at an appropriate time with the blessings of the DPP’s office.
Zambia Daily Mail