The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has said that continuous dialogues between the regulator and its various licensees are central to finding lasting solutions to issues negatively impacting licensee’s compliance with extant regulations and challenging the growth of the telecoms industry.
Danbatta stated this during the second edition of NCC’s 2021 Talk to The Regulator (TTTR) forum held at Four Points by Sheraton, Lagos, over the weekend. The theme of the discourse is, “Improving Stakeholders Satisfaction”. The Lagos edition of the programme followed the successful hosting of a similar dialogue in Kano on October 16, 2021.
According to a statement by the Commission’s Director, Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, the objective of the forum is to get direct feedback from licensees on how the Commission, as a regulator, is meeting licensees’ expectations.
The programme was also designed to identify areas for regulatory improvement, highlight areas where licensees are defaulting as well as address critical industry challenges undermining full accomplishment of the set objectives for consolidating the gains in the telecoms sector.
According to Danbatta, who was represented at the forum by NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Adeleke Adewolu, the forum is orgainsed in keeping with the Commission’s commitment to continually ensure regulator-licensee interactions to develop collaborative solutions and implementation programmes to the challenges of the telecom ecosystem.
“The Nigerian Communications Act (NCA, 2003) invests the NCC with powers and responsibilities for the regulation of both the technical and market-related aspects of telecoms infrastructure and services in Nigeria. We consider our role as regulator very vital to ensuring industry sustainability, because NCC considers consultation as the lifeblood of regulation” the EVC emphasised.
The EVC also declared that “we have consistently deployed stakeholder engagement tools like public inquiries, private investigations, written information requests, one-on-one discussions as we are having it now and diverse consumer engagement platforms.
These tools enable us to ensure that our interventions are well-grounded and that our decisions are based on a clear understanding of stakeholders’ perspectives”.
Danbatta said that such interactions fit squarely within the five pillars of the Commission’s Strategic Management Plan (2020-2024), which include Regulatory Excellence, Promotion of Universal Broadband Access, the Development of the Digital Economy, Facilitation of Market Development, and Strategic Partnering.
“Through regular interactions with our licensees, the Commission is able to gain valuable insights to enhance our regulatory output and enabled us to drive excellence in consonance with the five pillars of our strategic vision for the industry as streamlined in the Commission’s Strategic Vision Plan (SVP), 2021-2025,” he said.
The EVC also reinforced the Commission’s belief that only through optional performance by the licensees will Nigeria be able to achieve the national objectives and targets in the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) 2020-2030, the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP), 2020-2025 and other national policy instruments targeted at developing the nation’s digital economy ecosystem.
He said on this basis that the Commission is, “Therefore, we intend to use this forum to seek support for many initiatives that the commission has carefully developed in our quest to enhance market opportunities for all our licensees,” Danbatta said to emphasise NCC’s faith in collaboration with stakeholders and its licensees in order to address any concerns that may impede the attainment of the relevant policy objectives.
The NCC CEO also emphasised that the Commission will continue to roll out forward-thinking and all-inclusive regulatory initiatives to provide market opportunities for all its licensees. Additionally, Danbatta said NCC is also committed to constantly reviewing licensing framework as well as key regulatory instruments so as to refresh the Commission’s regulatory frameworks and ensure better service delivery for consumers and efficient attainment of other national interest objectives.
However, Danbatta said some licensees are not doing as much as they ought to be doing. “Several licensees are struggling to pay their staff, many are unable to comply with basic licence obligations, some are defaulting in the payment of their Annual Operating Levies (AOL) while the level of interconnect and other inter-licensee indebtedness is still unacceptably high.
Therefore, we are required to ensure regulatory interventions are put in place to address challenges, bottlenecks and grievances that may arise among the licensees in this regard,” he said.
Also addressing the gathering, the Director, Licensing and Authorisation at NCC, Mohammed Babajika, said the forum was intended to foster a harmonious relationship with licensees, identify their challenges and provide feedback on licensees’ fulfillment of their licence obligations and to re-emphasise the role of licensees in ensuring good quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) for the consumers.
While intimating the licensees of some regulatory initiatives focused on licensing issues, Babajika said despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and its resultant challenges, the Commission was taking measures to further liberalise the telecoms industry by finalising the framework for Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) while also reviewing existing licensing regulations.
In addition, the Director also informed the licensees that the Commission was finalising work on Information Memorandum (IM) for Fifth Generation (5G) technology deployment, which will promote emerging technology trends such as Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Over-The-Top (OTT) Services and Big Data Analytics, Blockchain, among others.
At the event, presentations were made by the Management staff of the Commission to the licensees and others, who participated actively through listening, making observations and suggestions, as well as seeking clarifications to improve the quality of discourse and the expected outcomes.
CONTINUOUS DIALOGUE CRITICAL TO TACKLING TELECOMS INDUSTRY CHALLENGES, SAYS DANBATTA
I am regular reader, how are you everybody? This piece of writing posted at this web site is in fact pleasant.
I enjoy what you guys are up too. This type of clever work and coverage! Keep up the great works guys I’ve incorporated you guys to my blogroll.
I’m gone to say to my little brother, that he should also visit this blog on regular basis to take updated from latest gossip.
Hi there, I think your web site could be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your website in Safari, it looks fine but when opening in IE, it has some overlapping issues. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other than that, great website!
Hi, i think that i saw you visited my web site so i got here to go back the want?.I am trying to in finding things to improve my site!I assume its good enough to use some of your concepts!!
If some one needs to be updated with newest technologies then he must be pay a visit this site and be up to date every day.
I am really happy to read this webpage posts which contains lots of useful information, thanks for providing such information.
This is very interesting, You are an excessively professional blogger. I have joined your feed and look forward to in search of more of your wonderful post. Also, I have shared your web site in my social networks
Good post. I am going through some of these issues as well..
Wow, awesome blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you make blogging look easy. The overall look of your web site is wonderful, let alone the content!
When I originally commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Thank you!
Hello there, You have done an excellent job. I will definitely digg it and personally recommend to my friends. I am sure they will be benefited from this site.
It’s awesome designed for me to have a site, which is valuable for my knowledge. thanks admin
Hi there friends, nice article and pleasant arguments commented here, I am actually enjoying by these.
Hi, i feel that i saw you visited my blog so i got here to go back the favor?.I am trying to find things to improve my website!I guess its ok to use some of your concepts!!
Hey there! Quick question that’s entirely off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My web site looks weird when viewing from my iphone. I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to fix this problem. If you have any suggestions, please share. Appreciate it!
Hi my family member! I want to say that this article is awesome, great written and come with almost all important infos. I’d like to peer more posts like this .
My spouse and I stumbled over here coming from a different web page and thought I might as well check things out. I like what I see so now i am following you. Look forward to checking out your web page again.
Link exchange is nothing else but it is simply placing the other person’s website link on your page at appropriate place and other person will also do same for you.
Informative article, exactly what I wanted to find.
An interesting discussion is worth comment. I think that you ought to write more on this issue, it might not be a taboo subject but usually people do not speak about such topics. To the next! All the best!!
We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your web site provided us with valuable information to work on. You have done an impressive job and our whole community will be grateful to you.
This is a good tip especially to those new to the blogosphere. Brief but very accurate information Thank you for sharing this one. A must read article!
I know this website gives quality dependent articles and other information, is there any other site which gives such information in quality?
Incredible! This blog looks exactly like my old one! It’s on a completely different topic but it has pretty much the same layout and design. Great choice of colors!
Since the admin of this site is working, no hesitation very rapidly it will be famous, due to its quality contents.
I like the valuable information you provide in your articles. I will bookmark your weblog and check again here frequently. I am quite certain I will learn plenty of new stuff right here! Good luck for the next!
Hi, i think that i saw you visited my web site so i got here to go back the choose?.I am trying to in finding things to improve my site!I assume its ok to use some of your concepts!!
When I originally commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get three emails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Bless you!
My family members all the time say that I am wasting my time here at net, except I know I am getting experience everyday by reading such pleasant posts.