MTN Nigeria, yesterday, said the closure of its facilities in Ondo by the state government would negatively impact on the quality of its service in the state and its environs. Millions of subscribers would be affected by the development, MTN said.
The telecoms operator said so in a statement issued by its corporate communications executive, Amina Oyagbola, adding that services that will be affected comprised voice and data services, voice traffic across other operators and international traffic, enterprise data service to third-party clients (mostly banks and other corporate clients), which may, in turn, impact services such as ATMs, POS and others.
The Ondo State Government, on December 23, last year, sealed MTN’s base transmission stations (BTS) in the state over tax-related issues.
The sealing followed a court order against MTN regarding a tax claim of N458.5 million allegedly owed the Ondo State Board of Internal Revenue Service (OSBIRS) in pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) deductions, withholding tax (WHT), development levy, business premises tax and education endowment tax.
“There will be poor or total loss of network coverage for all MTN subscribers in Ondo as the sealing of facilities means that service providers will not be able to carry out routine maintenance work or refuel the generators servicing the base transceiver stations (BTS’). In addition, a major hub site for both fibre and microwave transmission which connects the north, south and east will be affected, leading to loss of services in the whole of Ekiti State, as well as parts of Edo and Niger states.” the MTN executive said.
