The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), has explained its engagement with MultiChoice Nigeria, the most populous African country’s subsidiary of MultiChoice Africa, owner of DStv and GOtv, over its pricing regime and service offerings.
It would be recalled that on Tuesday, March 22, 2022, MultiChoice disclosed its new pricing regime, just a few days after the FCCPC ordered MultiChoice to introduce new features to its customers.
The new directives include – the introduction of a price lock option that allows subscribers to maintain the same subscription fee for a minimum period of one year subject to a contractual agreement that clearly specifies the applicable terms and conditions, increment in the number of times all subscribers may suspend their subscription up to at least four (4) times annually, provision of completely toll-free customer service lines which are operational 24 hours daily, amongst others.
The MultiChoice price regime and service offerings have been a topic of discussion among the Pay TV’s subscribers, and to quell the furore, Babatunde Irukera, the Executive Vice Chairman of FCCPC, explained that the engagement was to check whether the company implemented a change in terms and conditions in line with the commission’s mandated steps.
According to him, the agency’s orders were broad and it will be important that compliance was prioritized.
His words: “Although we cannot, and did not regulate price except in limited circumstances requiring presidential approval and gazetting.
“As such, our order to MultiChoice did not prevent them from pricing their services in a manner acceptable between them and their subscribers.
“We regulate price gouging. The nature of gouging is post-fact, meaning that when a price movement occurs, we can investigate to determine if it is excessive, exploitative, unrestored, or manifestly unjust.
“Such is a very intricate investigation and the fact of the existence of any increase is not the entire evidence.
“There is a method to analyse the increase and other circumstances leading to it.
“As in the case of pharmacies, we are prosecuting for inordinate increases of certain products during early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For now, the first check with MultiChoice is whether they implement, or intend to, a material change in terms and conditions (of which price is one) without the steps the Commission has mandated as conditions precedent.”
