The Federal Government has applauded the leadership of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, for impressive regulatory performance which has positively impacted the national economic growth.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. William Alo gave the commendation while receiving the management team of NCC, led by the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, who briefed him on the status of the industry after his recent appointment to the Ministry.
Alo had stated: “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. We are aware today that between oil and communications, the latter is gradually taking over in the provision of revenue for the country as the nation strives to diversify the economy.”
According to him, “the quality of service has improved tremendously over the past few years now and your efforts are generally felt in the economy. So when you talk of digitalization of the economy, the NCC and the operators are the first port of call”.
Prof Danbatta explained the performance of the regulator under its Strategic Vision (Implementation) Plan, SVP, 2021 – 2025.
He listed some key achievements of the Commission under him including the recent successful auction of 3.5GHz spectrum for 5G, licensing of 7 fibre optics infrastructure providers, and adding up to 38, 296 kilometers of fibre optic in the country.
He added that by enabling 15 million Nigerians have access to telecommunications services and increasing fibre optics deployments from 47,000 kilometers to 54, 725 kilometers, access gap clusters in the country have been reduced from 217 to 114.
He revealed that the 3G and 4G Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) in the country have increased from less than 30,000 in 205 to 53, 460 while 7VSAT gateway earth stations have been licensed to boost broadband penetration in the country.
He also informed the new Perm Sec that the Commission under him has also remitted N463 billion to the Consolidated Revenue Fund from 2015 to April 2022, while landing permits have been issued to 53 Geo Satellite Orbits space stations and 923 non-GSO space stations.