Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Not less than N150 billion has been generated as spectrum fee in five months by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
A statement issued on Sunday by the agency’s Director of Public Affairs, Mr Ikechukwu Adinde, disclosed this amount surpassed the N36 billion projection by 400 per cent.
The increase, according to the NCC, reflects a significant contribution to the revenue drive of the federal government. It was stated that the funds have been remitted to the government in line with the provisions of the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA), 2003, which mandates the commission to remit proceeds from spectrum resources wholly into the government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
The agency, in its 2021 Budget which was considered and approved by both chambers of the National Assembly in December 2020, projected revenue of N36 billion from spectrum fee for the year 2021 but has remarkably surpassed this estimate.
Over the years, the NCC has put in place an effective regulatory regime that has significantly facilitated advancements in the nation’s telecoms industry, boosted Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and improved the operations of licensees as well as boosted the federal government’s revenue generation.
Commenting on the revenue performance, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, said that the impressive uptick in spectrum fee was the result of the favourable turn of events for the telecom sector, which at the time of preparing the estimates for the 2021 budget of the commission was not clear due to the ravaging impact of COVID-19 on the global economy.
Mr Danbatta noted that the 10-year spectrum fees made by some of the major operators directly impacted the projected spectrum fee favourably, adding that the commission believes that the enthronement of effective regulation will continue to improve the general performance of the telecoms sector.
On October 28, 2020, Mr Danbatta told members of the House Committee on Telecommunications while on an oversight function to the commission that the NCC had generated and remitted N344.71 billion to the Federal Government’s CRF in the last five years.
During the oversight visit, the Chairman of the Committee, Mr Akeem Adeyemi, commended NCC’s management for the feat and urged the commission “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.”
