MultiChoice Nigeria has fobbed off the House of Representatives adhoc-committee investigating pay-as-you-go tariff on satellite broadcast service providers in Nigeria and announced an increase in tariff, effective September 1, 2020.
The House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee Investigating the Non-Implementation of ‘Pay As You Go’ Tariff by Satellite Broadcast Service Providers had summoned the South African- based MultiChoice and StarTimes, domiciled with the Federal Government owned Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, to appear before it on Tuesday, August 25, 2020
MutiChoice in a statement of August 21, titled Re: MultiChoice Packages Subscription Price Adjustment
said in part, “we periodically our pricing taking into consideration such factors as inflation and operational cost. We acknowledge that the people of Nigerian are living under increased economic pressure and we have made efforts to freeze the subscription prices last year barring any extreme factors such as devaluation of currency and charges to VAT mandated by government,
“On Tuesday, September 1, 2020, prices for DStv, GOtv packages will be adjusted upwards as follows:
Premium from N16, 300 to N18, 400; Compact Plus from N10,925 to N12, 400; Compact from N6,975 to N7,900 and GOtv max from N3,280 to N3,600, while prices for Confam, Yanga, Padi, GOtv Jolly, GOtv Jinja GOtv Lite remain unchanged.”
Also justifying the increase in tariff, Mr Tunde Aina, Chief Operating Officer of StarTimes, disclosed that, “The organisation is currently operating the ‘pay as you watch’ tariff to meet the aspirations of a section of the Nigerian society, who are sparsely at home all day, all week, all month and all year round.”
According to him, the increment would enable StarTimes offset extra costs incurred in the course of its operations, brought about by the high exchange rates in the acquisition of equipment outside Nigeria as well in power generation to run its operations.
The committee had given the cable service providers two weeks to review its subscription fees to reflect the current new 7.5 per cent Value Added Tax at its investigative hearing in Abuja, a fortnight ago.
Chairman of the committee, Mr Uyime Idem, said the directive was to allow MultiChoice and StarTimes to have a tariff that reflect the current economic realities, including the VAT and the exchange rate.
The federal lawmakers decried that the tariff hike came at a time when Nigerians were suffering serious economic hardships caused by the COVID- 19 pandemic.
