Following a reported increase in complaints from consumers over unsolicited texts and calls for telemarketing and commercial services, Ghana's National Communications Authority (NCA) has begun public consultation after amending its current Unsolicited Electronic Communications (UEC) code to service providers.

The NCA is now seeking the opinions of consumers and the public until 24 January, 2017 in line with the country's constitutional provisions to be used to meet its legal requirements.

The revised code sets out seven new ways of obtaining subscribers' consent to receive unsolicited messages, including via a web-based opt-in or by a text to a shortcode, filling out a paper-based or online form.

The NCA says all these methods must have consent from all recipients, and the code is also binding for government entities.

The Director of Openspace Digital Tech and former Regional Manager, West Africa for WeChat, Idemudia Dima-Okojie, notes that the issue of unsolicited messages actually needs some attention - particularly the share scale at which consumers are bombarded with them and/or at times charged a premium for receiving them, even when no subscription was made.

He opines that the NCA is going in the right direction with the Public Consultation Process. He stated via LinkedIn: "A balance will have to be reached in the rules that will guide Unsolicited Messaging. at the end, the Telcos, VAS Providers and even the NCA will have to come up with a framework that will improve the Customer's experience on the network."

Prior to this amendment, the first draft of the UEC code was prepared for review in November 2013 when the NCA developed a number of measures to deal with UECs - including a requirement for all mobile network operators and content providers to ensure that all messages which have not been subscribed to, do not cost consumers.

A final copy was signed by the Director General in December 2014.

Now it seems several modifications have to be made. When approved, the licensees are to be in full compliance with the revised UEC code six months after the issuance date in 2017.

Dima-Okojie says the NCA has to bear in mind that the growth of the Value Added Services sector has forced individual providers to proactively promote their services (hence the barrage of unsolicited messages), providers rely on telcos for their services to be discovered and outright marketing and billing is great for the economy because nobody will use the services if they are not known.

Also, despite the promotion of a handful of partner VAS providers, more services have been developed by other providers which the telcos are not responsible for since they may not be strategic to their business. These other services are left to fend for themselves leading to a different third party.

Users generally do not mind receiving information about products and services, especially those relevant to them, but resent receiving irrelevant messages from different third parties including the telcos, Dima-Okojie said. He added that users get frustrated and feel cheated when they get charged to receive such irrelevant and unsubscribed messages.

He says: "In my opinion, the telcos and VAS providers need to do more with analytics with the data available to them. It is not enough to have phone numbers and names. They need to find ways to learn more about their users, and determine their preferences; and based on these preferences deliver only relevant information to the users. In addition, users should only be charged, only if they give explicit permission to be charged to receive these messages."

Nigeria's NCC recently took a similar step threatening to sanction 13 telcos including Airtel, MTN, Globacom, Ntel and Etisalat for failing to comply with its Do Not Disturb (DND) directives issued on 20 April 2016 following a deluge of complaints it says it received from subscribers.