Fakoyejo OlalekanCellphone sellers have been warned by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) that they could face arrest if caught selling non-type approved devices to customers.
According to the Deputy Director of the Consumer Affairs Bureau (CAB) of the NCC, Emilia Nwokolo, there’s a fine attached to sales of non-type approved devices.
She stated that there are dangers around selling unapproved phones, laptops and others, so it’s necessary to educate cellphone sellers in Nigeria.
Nwokolo made this known through a sensitization programme at the GSM Village Abuja, on Thursday, where she represented NCC’s Director of Consumer Affairs, Alkassim Umar.
“As you know this is the GSM village and they deal with all these devices, phones, laptops and others. And the essence of coming here is to sensitise them to the danger of selling Non-Type approved devices.
“Normally in NCC, we approve the devices that can be sold in the Nigerian Market because some of them are substandard, so we don’t want the substandard devices to be in circulation in the market.
“So based on that, we need to sensitise them to know the danger of selling such Non-type approved devices.
“We are doing our bid to sensitize them but there are other departments in the NCC responsible that go about doing the monitoring and the enforcement
“First of all before you bring in telecom devices, you have to seek approval from NCC so we have to check it and if it is okay, we go ahead and type approved it. There is already a fine actually if you are caught selling Non-type approved devices,” she told cellphone sellers.
Also, the Chairman of the GSM Village market in Abuja, Macdonald Ajuogu, warned members that there’s a task force monitoring the sales of devices, so anyone caught selling unapproved phones will lose their goods or get suspended.
“We have a platform in the market whereby anybody who deals with cellphones in the market is registered with the union and we also have a task force that always checks on everything that is being done in the market.
’’If it happens that somebody is selling a product either a phone or computer, we have members that deal with computers and the task force always monitors the proper distribution of these goods in this market.
“So, if there is anybody that is found wanting, the task force will always confiscate their goods.
’’Although sometimes some of our members always cut corners, trying to do one or two things, we always advise them not to deal with non-type approved phones or laptops in the market.
’’We don’t call it non-type approved phones in this market, we call them Chinco phones. So, we always advise them not to indulge in it. We want them to be sincere with their customers,” Ajuogu stated during the sensitization.
He said there’s a constitution that allows defaulting members to be sanctioned or suspended.
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