The Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services will investigate why\u00a0many Vodacom users\u2019 data suddenly disappeared this week.<\/p>\n
According to a report by htxt<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0government has decided to move forward with the investigation despite Vodacom offering to reimburse every effected customer with a 500MB bundle.<\/p>\n “The Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services strongly condemns the incident involving Vodacom earlier this week, in which the company deducted millions of rands worth of airtime and data from customers,” the acting chair of the Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services said in a statement.<\/p>\n “Although the company has apologised to the customers and committed not only to refund them, but also to give them a 500MB bundle valid for three days, the Committee feels strongly that the matter should be investigated by an independent body,” the statement said.<\/p>\n \u201cSouth Africa ranks fourth out of 17 African countries with high costs of data, and to have millions of people robbed of their airtime and data in this manner is a serious concern,\u201d said Dikeledi Tsotetsi, the acting chairperson of the Committee.<\/p>\n “Having received inputs from individuals and organisations during the cost-to-communicate public hearings held in Parliament last year, the Committee has tasked the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to investigate the matter further.”<\/p>\n Tsotetsi said while the Committee is awaiting reports of the ongoing investigations by Icasa and the Competition Commission, the mobile network operators have a responsibility to conduct business in a manner that is just and lawful.<\/p>\n Many Vodacom subscribers complained that their data was depleting for no apparent reason on 21 August.<\/p>\n Vodacom acknowledged the problem and corrected the issue before working to reimburse customers.<\/p>\n