The Nigerian Communications Commission has so far remitted N463 billion directly into the Federal Government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) in the last five years.
This disclosure was made while the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta with the management team of NCC visited the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. William Alo who briefed them on the status of the industry after his recent appointment to the Ministry.
Prof Danbatta who led a team of two executive commissioners and directors of the Commission to the briefing listed successes recorded since 2015 by the commission.
Consolidated Revenue Fund is a general fund of government into which all receipts are paid into and out of which all withdrawals, except those that are charged on other funds, are made from in accordance with the Constitution
According to Section 80(1) of the 1999 Constitution, “all revenues or other money raised or received by the Federation (other than revenues or other money payable under this Constitution or any Act of the National Assembly into any other Public Fund established for a specific purpose) shall be paid into and form one Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.”
The NCC chief executive listed some other key achievements of the Commission under him including the recent successful auction of 3.5GHz spectrum for 5G services, licensing of 7 fibre optics infrastructure providers, and adding up to 38,296 kilometers of fibre optic in the country.
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Danbatta noted that access gap clusters in the country have been reduced from 217 to 114 to enable 15 million Nigerians to have access to telecommunications services, and increase of fibre optics deployments from 47,000 kilometers to 54,725 kilometers.
The EVC revealed that the 3G and 4G Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) in the country have increased from less than 30,000 in 2015 to 53,460 while 7 VSAT gateway earth stations have been licensed to boost broadband penetration in the country.
He also listed successes recorded since 2015 in teledensity, broadband penetration, and significant contribution of the industry to the gross domestic product (GDP) that grew from 8.5 per cent in the 4th quarter of 2015 to 12.61 in the 4th quarter of 2021, as the sector also attracted over $2 billion in foreign direct investment over the period.
Danbatta, who provided a detailed briefing about the achievements of the Commission and its efforts toward addressing all the challenges confronting the industry, intimated to him with the key focus and targets of the Commission through the launched of the Strategic Vision (Implementation) Plan SVP 2021 – 2025, which took into consideration, the provisions of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy 2020-2030, and National Broadband Plan 2020-2025.
He said the SVP, which streamlines all policies for a robust sectoral lifting and relevance, has five focus areas which include: operational efficiency and regulatory excellence; facilitation of infrastructure provision for the digital economy; promotion of fair competition, inclusive growth and investment; improvement of quality of serve and quality of experience; and facilitation of strategic collaboration and partnership.
However, in July 2022, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has so far remitted about N29 billion directly to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).