NCC Remits N463b in Seven Years; Govt Applauds Achievements

The Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta, has said the body remitted N463 billion to the Federal Government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund between 2015 and April 2022.

He revealed this when he led the management team on a visit to the new Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. William Alo, in Abuja.

Danbatta said the focus of the commission was on its Strategic Vision (Implementation) Plan SVP 2021 – 2025.

The plan took into consideration the provisions of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy 2020-2030. It also considered the National Broadband Plan 2020-2025.

The head of the commission said the SVP has five focus areas. They are operational efficiency and regulatory excellence; facilitation of infrastructure provision for the digital economy, and promotion of fair competition.

The other two are facilitation of strategic collaboration and growth and investment, improvement of quality of service, quality of experience.

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Danbatta stated that access gap clusters within the country have been decreased from 217 to 114. This is to allow 15 million Nigerians gain access to telecommunications services.

Also, it is to enable the millions of people increase fibre optics deployments from 47,000 kilometers to 54, 725 kilometers.

In his response, the Perm. Sec. applauded the leadership of the NCC for the exceptional achievements of the commission. He said these strides have positioned Nigeria well in terms of international repute.

Dr Alo said, “So far so good. The entire country, and beyond, is fully aware of the strategic importance of the NCC as a regulating institution of the telecommunications industry in Nigeria. And, of course, we are aware today that between oil and communications.”

He said communications is taking over in the provision of revenue as the nation aims at economy diversification.

Praising the NCC, he said, “Your efforts are generally felt in the economy. So when you talk of digitalisation of the economy, the NCC and the operators are the first port of call.”

He urged the leadership of the commission to keep up the great work being done. He also advised the body to close any gap between the served and underserved communitie s in the country.