The Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of
the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umar Garba Danbatta,
has lauded the performance of the nation’s telecommunications industry in the
first quarter of 2016, expressing optimism for further growth and contributions
into the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), reports ITRealms.
This is coming as the EVC assure his office would review the 2.6
Gega Hertz (GHz) spectrum auction.
Speaking while receiving a consortium of international investors
led by UBS South Africa, Danbatta disclosed that the commission would soon meet
with operators over the recent auction of 2.6GHz spectrum, which saw only MTN
Nigeria, bid for 6 out of 14 available slots.
Special
Assistant on Media to EVC, Yakubu Musa in a press statement available to
ITRealms quoted Danbatta as being excited with the level of compliance to regulatory
stipulations in general, minus the MTN incident, which cast some sort of shadow
on regulatory derive to ensure sustainability and stability of the industry.
“I am happy, we are putting that one behind us, and this is
attested to by recent statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)
that the industry recorded a growth of 0.5 per cent to GDP in comparison to the
same period last year.
“In monetary terms this is going to translate to over N1.4
trillion, only in the first quarter of this year. While other sectors of the
economy is recording negative growth, the telecom industry has been recording
positive growth and I think it is poised to grow even further in the subsequent
quarters of the year,” he explained.
On the 2.6.GHz spectrums auction, the EVC said NCC would conduct a
post mortem of the exercise, stressing they have not yet met with the operators
to find out why they did not bid, except one operator.”
“The intention is to be able to know their reasons, and to know in
what way the regulator can come in to relax some of the conditions in the
process, if this relaxation can lead to more operators going for the remaining
8.
He assured the commission will be disposed to look at the reasons
that prevented other operators from coming forward to bid, except only one.
Danbatta further said, the commission incorporates elements of
flexibility in its dealing with operators, in order to continue to sustain the
growth in the sector, which he said, “has the potential to provide an
alternative to oil and gas”.
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