By Adedapo Adesanya
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr Umar Dambatta, has said the commission generated over $500 million for the federal government from the recently successful fifth-generation spectrum auction.
He also unveiled plans for the deployment of technology to verify annual operating levies (AOL), tax and other payments by network service providers to the federal government.
Mr Dambatta made these disclosures in Abuja on Wednesday during an investigative hearing held at the instance of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the duplication of functions of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) of the central government.
According to the NCC chief, the revenues generated from the 5G auction, which MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications Limited won, have been remitted to the government.
He said: “We are currently going to deploy a technology solution. We call it Revenue Assurance Solution (RAS).
“We have finished signing the MOU with the Consultant that is going to do this deployment so that we can independently verify that the amount of annual operating levy (AOL) they are paying and other taxes are indeed what they are supposed to pay and, therefore, not shortchange the NCC or government when it comes to payment of taxes.
“We, through what we call annual operating levy, run our operations, pay our staff salaries and allowances and even provide resources for intervention in the diverse areas of information and communication technology in the various parts of the country.
“These interventions are verifiable. There is no state of the federation that we don’t provide interventions in the diverse areas of ICT. We also provide training. We would like to ensure our citizens are ICT savvy by embracing this important technology because that is what the whole is doing.
“That is what we can do to ensure our citizens are socially and economically transformed to change the way they are doing things, the way they collaborate and innovate.
“We have records available to show that we have been contributing a lot to the coffers of the government and a very good example is when we did that successful 5G auction. The proceeds from the auction go to the coffers of the government.
“We don’t normally take anything. It is gazetted that whatever we sell spectrum, we do not keep the money; we normally transfer this money to the consolidated revenue fund of the government.”
Aduragbemi Omiyale