Pilgrims Bemoan Excessive Charges On Calls

Nigerian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia have decried the excessive
charges by Saudi Telecommunication Company (STC) which issued them with free
SIM cards through the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria.

Our  correspondent in
Medina reports that most of the pilgrims were complaining of “crazy charges”
which had limited their ability to communicate with their families in Nigeria.

Alhaji Usman Abdullahi from Niger told our
correspondent  that he loaded 10 Riyals
(about N500) worth of credit on his handset but was only able to make a call to
Nigeria for one minute.

“I was surprised that I could not continue with the call,
even though I had a balance of four Riyals; throughout the day and in the
morning, my credit balance was reading zero,’’ he said.

Another pilgrim, Alhaji Malami Gwandu from Kebbi said he had
since stopped using the SIM card after discovering that the charges were
“excessively too high”.

Many pilgrims were also said to have stopped using the card.

An official of STC in Medina who refused to be named, said
the high charges was a result of dual billing.

“The pilgrims is charged by STC and the donor company also
charges the pilgrim effectively reducing the air time available to the affected
person. We have received similar complaints from other pilgrims.’’

It would be recalled that an official of the Niger Pilgrims
Welfare Board, Alhaji Mamman Mohammad had in August said in Minna that the free
SIM cards had “no hidden charges”.

Efforts to contact Chairman of the commission, Alhaji
Mohammed Bello, to comment on the matter was not successful.

All the 95,000 pilgrims from Nigeria were provided with the
free SIM card by the commission.