Ahmed Samir, vice president of the Egyptian Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), held a meeting with the presidents of three of the nation’s largest mobile companies last week. During the meeting, the CPA requested that the companies not raise the price of their recharge cards, in addition to providing the agency with information regarding all licensed distributors and sellers of cards. This would help the agency identify which distributors were manipulating the price of recharge cards and selling them at inflated rates.
He added that the CPA was considering taking measures to begin punishing those who violated the law by up-selling recharge charge cards. These measures will begin by the end of this week when the agency will begin launching investigations on the state of the nation’s telecommunications companies.
Mobinil, which was previously ranked as Egypt’s number one service provider in terms of quality of service, is set to stand before the nation’s public prosecutor over allegations that the company broke the law in order to obtain that rank. The CPA said that its role in prosecuting the company will end once representatives from Mobinil stand before the public prosecutor.
Samir stated that the CPA began taking legal measures against the company after it was revealed that Mobinil attempted to cover up the release of information found in a report written by the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority. The report sought to promote free and fair competition and provide incentives for companies to develop and improve the quality of their service for clients.
