The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, says the Commission is planning a subsidy package to encourage service providers in the telecom sector to expand their infrastructural base and provide better quality of service for the subscribers.
Danbatta disclosed this on Tuesday, during the Universal Service Provision Fund, USPF interactive meeting with states’ School Knowledge Centre, SKC Desk officers at the NCC conference room, Abuja.
He said the Commission under his leadership is determined to improve the quality of service delivery in the nation’s telecom sector, while taking into cognizance specified international standards set by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and it specifies parameters.
The EVC noted that the Commission is worries by the enormous challenges prevailing in the industry and is committed to addressing them through some deliberate policies such as incentives to operators for infrastructure and network expansion considering the fact that telecomm infrastructure are capital intensive.
‘‘We intend to prevail on operators to expand by way of having more infrastructure to be able to address the high number of subscribers to be able to access their services and the way to do that is through intervention by introducing subsidy to encourage the service providers to go into provision of telecomm infrastructure, which is capital intensive.
‘‘Quality of service is normally measured in terms of penetration rates more often broadband penetration rates, internet penetration rates and these penetration rates for the sub Saharan Africa are abysmally low except for mobile penetration which Nigeria is leading the pack of countries in Sub Saharan Africa
‘‘The fact that Nigeria is leading is not enough.The more subscribers you have the more the telecomm services are stretched.’’
To further address the challenge, Danbatta said plans were underway to put to an end the lingering challenge of multiple taxation and Right of way, which he said had hampered the infrastructure deployment efforts of service providers, adding that there is need for urgent measures to be put in place to avoid the continued decline of quality of service in the system.
‘‘NCC is consciously putting in place measures that would address the quality of service challenge to make sure that telecoms infrastructure is not vandalized and ensure that our telecommunication infrastructure are protected by facilitating the Right of Way policy which is something that has to do with gaining access to sites and locations where we need to lay infrastructure like fibre cables.
‘‘We also need to address the issue of multiple taxation at the federal and state levels and as well as at the local government level as various form of taxation are being introduced and the telecomm services providers are complaining about this about the multiple taxations.’’
On the USPF sustainable Projects, the NCC boss promised to channel the available resources to the USPF to undertaking such projects it was set to do and also ensure that funds are provided for their sustainability in line with ITU charter.
In his remarks, the Secretary, Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), Ayuba Shuibu explained that the SKC project is one of the projects designed to inculcate 21st century skills to the students, which are a set of abilities that students need to develop in order to succeed in the digital world.
According to him, the meeting was convened for the Desk Officers to understand the objectives of the project and the responsibilities of the parties involved.
He stated that the main focus of the eLearning initiatives is to ensure higher scores in school subjects in both internal and external examinations and learning of entirely new skills including entrepreneurship and using ICT in day-to-day activities.
For the continued success of this project, he charged the Desk Officers to demonstrate willingness in the project and take ownership of their responsibilities within each jurisdiction.
The USPF was principally established based on the recommendation of the ITU that all countries and regulators like NCC should set aside certain percentage of their annual operation levy which is 40 percentage to drive the activities of USPF.
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