Senate orders Multi-Choice Nigeria top halt tariff increase

The upper legislative chamber  has directed pay-tv service providers to halt the increase in their prices in tandem with the economic situation in Nigeria.

Specifically, the house kicked against the increase in tariffs by Multi-Choice Nigeria.

The upper legislation house has also set in motion machinery to probe Multi-Choice, owners of DSTV and GOTV Satellite’s decoders, over alleged arbitrary price hike of monthly subscription of various bouquets on their platforms.

The probe is designed to ascertain the constraints that have made it difficult for the Pay-TV providers to introduce Pay-Per-View for subscribers in the market, especially with the pricing activities of DStv (MultiChoice Nigeria) in Nigeria to bring them in line with international practice.

Consequently, the Senate constituted a seven-man Ad-hoc Committee to probe the tariff hike introduced by pay-tv service providers.

The Senate has urged the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, and the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to direct pay-tv providers to introduce a pay-per-view model of subscription as against the monthly prepaid model presently in place.

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, urged the committee to find out how other countries are billed by pay-tv service providers.

The Committee, which has the Deputy Chief Whip, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, APC, Niger North as Chairman, has Sulaiman Abdu Kwari, APC, Kaduna North; Oluremi Tinubu, APC. Lagos Central; Yusuf A. Yusuf, APC, Taraba Central; Lekan Mustapha, APC, Ogun East; Chukwuka Utazi, PDP, Enugu North and Akon Eyakenyi, PDP, Akwa Ibom South as members.