By Alie Turay
Comium SL, one of the mobile phone operators in Sierra Leone has for the past one week gone down in Makeni City and it surroundings with no means of getting mobile and internet connection through. The situation is causing “serious embarrassments” to customers who before now were reliant on the company’s mobile service.
According to Abdulai Kamara a business man in Makeni told AWOKO that he is losing out a lot in terms of business because most of his partners within and out of the country use the Comium line to transact business with him.
Isatu Turay, a house wife said she has been unable to buy books and uniforms for her children simply because she could not make or receive calls on her Comium line from and to her husband abroad. “My husband knows my Comium line only with which we have talking to each other. Now we are incommunicado,” she said.
Alusine Koroma a student said Comium is depriving the people of Makeni deliberately because according to him, no public notice had been issued out to inform subscribers about what was happening with the network.
The downing of Comium’s mobile service in that part of the country is also seriously affecting staffs of mining companies working away from their families who are subscribers to Comium. “The usual Bank Text messages we receive on our Comium lines alerting us of our salary payments in our accounts are no longer forthcoming. This has caused most of us embarrassments because we no cannot tell what we have in our accounts,” Tamba Bangura said.
A staff of Comium working at the Comium Shop in Makeni explained that they do not have any engineer which is mostly why they cannot switch on the Comium Makeni since there has been no form of repair works done to the facility. He could not give any reason for the abrupt shut down or default of Comium in Makeni.
“Everything about Comium regarding maintenance is Freetown-based,” the worker who spoke on anonymity stated.
What has been ‘better smile’ for its customers has turned into ‘bitter smile’ for those in Makeni and its immediate surroundings.