The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has reacted to MultiChoice Nigeria's intention to raise subscription costs.
On Wednesday, the business's Executive Vice Chairman, Mr. Babatunde Irukera, said the purpose of the meeting was to see if the company had complied with the Commission's prescribed actions.


He told us that our directives were comprehensive and that compliance should be given top priority.

But even if we cannot control the price of goods and services, we have and have had a limited capacity to do so."

Accordingly, our order to MultiChoice did not restrict the company from pricing its services in a manner agreeable to both the company and its customers.

"We regulate price gouging," says the official. Gouging is post-factual, which means that once a price shift happens, we may analyze to see if it is excessive, exploitative, unrestored, or unfair.

It is a complicated inquiry, and the mere fact that there has been an increase is not conclusive proof of its existence.

"There is a way for analyzing the growth and the other factors that contributed to it.

"As we did in the case of pharmacies, we are pursuing criminal charges against individuals who purchased excessive quantities of particular items during the early phases of the COVID-19 outbreak.

He added, "the first thing we'll look at is whether MultiChoice has implemented, or intends to implement, a major change in terms and conditions (of which pricing is one) without first taking the procedures the Commission has specified as conditions precedent."

It is recalled that MultiChoice announced a rise in DStv and GOtv subscription fees on Tuesday, blaming the increase in the cost of inflation and company operations for the hike.

The charges are as follows: Xtraview + PVR access fee (formerly N2,300, now N2,900), Xtraview + PVR access fee (formerly N2,300, now N2,900), The company would now charge N2,669 for its services. Padi, which was previously N1,850, will now be N2,150. Yanga, formerly N2,565, will now be N2,950, and Confam, previously N4,615, will now be N5,300.

Additionally, Compact, which was previously N7,900, will now be N9,000, Compact Plus, which was previously N12,400, will now be N14,250, and Premium, which was previously N18,400, will now be N21,000.