Koforidua Mobitel subscribers angry over poor service

Subscribers of Mobitel Cell Phones in the New Juaben Municipality have petitioned Milicom Ghana Limited, operators of Mobitel, to restore the 30 days lost service units on their starcall cards and apologise to them for the inconvenience caused to them and their business partners during a recent unannounced break in service transmissions.

They have also petitioned the Minister for Transport and Communications to intervene and save cell phone subscribers from undue exploitation by telephone operators whose motive was to make profits at the expense of their customers.

At their meeting in Koforidua on Wednesday, the subscribers expressed their anger about what they described as " a cheating and ineptitude" on the part of the management of the company for the frequent break in service transmissions in the Municipality.

They alleged that, the recent break in service transmission in Koforidua, which lasted for over 30 days have caused "a lot of embarrassment to them and their business partners".

What was more appalling, according to them was that, "Mobitel continued to debit the units on the starcall cards of subscribers throughout the 30 days period, until they got finished and asked us to buy new units when transmission resumed recently".

The Spokesman for the subscribers, Mr Kwasi Agyeman Jantutu said in spite of the several complaints made by subscribers to the management of Mobitel, services have been interrupted without any notice to subscribers while units on their starcall cards have also been running out despite the break in services.

He said subscribers could not continue to pay for the inefficiencies of the company.

Mr Jantutu said the subscribers have also requested a meeting with the management of Mobitel to brief them on the problems militating against the smooth operation of the phones in the Municipality after which a new line of action would be taken.

The Management of Mobitel told the Ghana News Agency in Accra that "the outage of Mobitel service was caused by lightening strike that affected a major part of the Cellular infrastructure. Certain part of our coverage across the country were without any service for a given period of time".

It said: "For the loss of use of service, Mobitel gave all its prepaid customers a one-off credit of 20,000 cedis and also reduced the line rental charges for all Postpaid customers by 25 per cent.

The Management said: Provision has also been made to compensate customers, whose credit balances were erased during the period through our Offices or Accredited Agents in the specific areas where the outages were experienced. It said it was ready to offer the best possible service at all times.