The Nigerian Communications Commission has raked N150bn within five months, exceeding its N36bn projected revenue from spectrum license fees for 2021.
This represents over 400 per cent increase in revenue performance in respect of the income generated by the regulator between January 1 and May 31, reflecting significant contribution to the revenue drive of the Federal Government.
According the commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, the money has been remitted to the Federal Government in line with the provisions of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 that mandates the agency to lodge spectrum proceeds wholly in government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund.
He clarified that the NCC, in its passed 2021 budget, had targeted N36bn from spectrum for the whole year.
Adinde noted that his agency had put in place an effective regulatory regime that significantly facilitated advancements in the nation’s telecoms industry, boosted Gross Domestic Product and improved the operations of licensees aside enhancing government’s revenue generation.
The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta, said the impressive scorecard was due to favourable turn of events in the industry amid the ravaging impact of the Coronavirus disease on the global economy.
The commission believes that the enthronement of effective regulation will continue to improve the general performance of the telecoms sector, he noted.
Danbatta had told the House Representatives Committee on Telecommunications during its oversight visit to the NCC headquarters on October 28, 2020, that the organisation had generated and remitted N344.71bn to the CRF in the last five years.
The panel chairman, Akeem Adeyemi, commended the management for the feat and urged it “to sustain its regime of effective regulation of the telecoms sector in a manner that would be more mutually beneficial to the industry stakeholders, including the consumers of the telecoms services, the operators and the Nigerian government.”
