By Stanley Iwuoha
Nigeria’s telecom regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commision, NCC has issued a subtle warning to the country’s telecom operators, asking them to be mindful of the quality of services they render to subscribers or risk sanctions at any slightest breach.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission Dr Aminu Maida issued the warning in a breakfast meeting with Nigerian Technology reporters in Abuja.
The EvC said he will not hesitate to wield the big stick should subscribers complain they are not getting value for their money.
Maida, while unveiling his five point agenda in Abuja at Digital Economy Complex, at Mbora, Abuja, listed the five drivers as: capacity building; data driven policies, compliance, digitization and stakeholders collaboration. These according to him, will form the engine that will take the strategic blueprint of minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy and the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu from talk top reality.
He said the meeting was prioritised so important to the Commission in the scheme of things, as the Commission can’t over emphesise the importance of media in helping it disseminate information on its activities, projecting the brand and holding it accountable.
As a commission, he said, “we can’t over emphesis the importance of media in helping us disseminate information on our activities, projecting our brand and holding us accountable. I will like to unfold five drivers that my leadership will pay emphasise on as engine that will take the strategic blueprint of honourable minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy from talk top reality’’.
On capacity building, Maida said, his administration will make sure the NCC personnel were properly skilled up, make sure they have the right training in all facets that require them to deliver on the commission’s mandate.
On data driven decision, the NCC boss said, ‘‘There is going to be a change in the way we make decisions. We are going to be very data driven. All our decisions are going to be backed by data as soon as possible. We want to reduce emptiness and take the right decisions that will improve the industry’’.
For compliance, he vowed to enforce full compliance by the Mobile number Operators, MNOs towards delivering on optimal quality of experience for customers. ‘‘We intend to hold all our licensees accountable for effective service delivery, which consumers paid for.
‘‘When there is no regulation about any enforcement, the chances of meeting those obligations are very low. So, as we journey towards delivering on optimal quality of experience for customers, we intend to hold all our licensees accountable for effective service delivery, consumers paid for the service, and expect services to be at the same level of quality. We will hold them accountable to deliver as per their obligations in line with their licenses’’.
Speaking on digitization, Dr. Maida affirmed his resolve to look into the processes with a view to improving on it as well as leveraging emerging technologies to make the Commission more efficient, so that it can deliver on its regulatory mandate in a more efficient manner and also reduce its internal operating cost.
The new NCC CEO, who emphasised the importance of collaboration to the commission, said, ‘‘We will collaborate and place a very high premium on all our critical stakeholders including the media to ensure everybody is carried along in the co-creative process, so that we can strike a win win scenario. We believe that all our licensees have an obligation and we will not shy away to enforce compliant’’.
Continuing, he asserted that the Commission would be driven by recognition it has with every critical stakeholders, the consumers of telecoms services in the industry and all the licensees, the ISPs, the Sub-Marine Cable owners, telcos and all the licensees around the ecosystem, as well as the government.
For Licenses, he said the commission is committed to making life easier for them. ‘‘So, we are going to be doing a lot of advocacy, working with the minister around issues like Right of Way. We need to tell the story and this is where we need the media to help us tell the story that the short-term gain cannot outlive building digital infrastructure.
‘‘We will see how we are going to use campaign with MDAs to convey the message, imagining what will be when we build a robust digital infrastructure in all the states and removing some of the barriers for building digital infrastructure. Also is going to see how to work with states to reduce also most 50% multiple taxation to be able to bring in FDI’’.
In the same vein, he said the Commission is also going to advocate for National Critical Infrastructure and will go on national advocacy to make it happen.
For him, digital Communication Infrastructure is the foundation and future of the economy and as such needs to be treated as NCI because it is not only there is road construction that networks are disrupted but in various ways’’.
He further promised to build a robust and resilient infrastructure that will attract foreign investments in line with the presidential mandate.
While calling the media to also ways hold the commission accountable in this journey, he also urged them to always draw attention of the Commission to some of the blind spots but in a fair and collaborative manner.
‘‘What we need to give Nigerians is hope and not creating frustration pictures because to take ourselves out of where we are, we need that hope so those of us saddled with the responsibility to deliver can have the time to navigate some of these challenges towards building a better future’’.
On the issue of interconnection debt between MTN and Globacom, the EVC said the issue had been resolved on a round table and that the Commission would be issuing a press release to inform the public that the two titans had settled, having played mediation role and assured that such dispute would not get to that stage again.
Responding to questions on why Sim/NIN linkage challenges persists, Director of Enforcement, Mr. Efosa Edehen said the commission had identified what challenges are and is currently working assiduously with stakeholders to address the challenge of illegal Sim registration so that Nigerians can sleep with two eyes closed.
‘‘We will collaborate will all relevant agencies to ensure we have credible linkage’’.
Also responding to questions on low quality of service and low broadband penetration, the Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Engr. Ubale Maska blamed low quality of service and delay in meeting broadband target on vandalization of telecom infrastructure.
According to him, over 60 to 7o fibre cuts every month which results into low quality of service and broadband penetration.
As part of measures to cushion the impact of the constant vandalization, he said the commission has turn to satellite to close the gap.
In his response, the President of NITRA, Mr. Blessing Olaifa commended the EVC and his team for fulfilling his promise of engaging the media on regular basis and pledged the commitment of the association to collaborate with the commission for optimal service delivery.
