Umar Danbatta, executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), says the commission generated and remitted N344.71 billion in revenue to the federal government’s consolidated revenue fund (CRF) in the last five years.
He said the successes of NCC is due to the relationship between the commission and the national assembly, adding that the diligent oversight by the lawmakers and necessary legislative support brought forth a lot of dividends for the industry.
“Through the support of the lawmakers, especially the house of representatives committee on telecommunications, which the NCC leadership has worked with in the last five years, the commission has been able to generate and remit N344.71 billion to federal government CRF from spectrum fees and operating surplus,” he said.
He further said the telecoms investment grew from around $38 billion in 2015 to over $70 billion in 2020.
He also said the commission has been able to increase broadband penetration from 6 percent in 2015 to 45.43 percent as of September 2020, while basic active internet subscription grew from 90 million to 143.7 million.
“We are also empowering and protecting the consumers and ensuring we are able to sanitise the industry of improperly registered subscriber identification module (SIM) cards through our impartial regulatory approach.”
Meanwhile, the committee urged NCC to sustain its current template of ensuring effective regulation of the telecoms sector in a manner that would be more beneficial to the industry players, the consumers of the telecoms services and to the federal government.
Source: The Cable
