Emma Okonji examines on the impact of the strategic vision plan of the Nigerian Communications Commission, on the telecom sector and the economy since 2015, as well as other initiatives
Since 2015, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), under the watch of its Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has released two sets of Strategic Vision Plan (SVP), designed to achieve set targets that will promote development in the telecom sector and the Nigerian economy.
First was the Strategic Vision Plan (SVP) for the fiscal years 2015-2020 after due consultation with industry stakeholders. The second was the Strategic Vision Plan (SVP) for the fiscal years 2021-2025.
Assessing the impact of the SVP in the telecom sector, the Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, said the SVP for 2015-2020, which focused on the an 8-Point agenda of the commission, had significant improvement on the growth of the sector, with a high sector contribution to national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). According to him, the implementation facilitated broadband penetration growth from less than 18 per cent in 2015 to 45.02 per cent penetration level as at December 2020. He said within the same period, there was improvement in service quality offered by telecom operators and that the sector witnessed optimised usage and benefits of spectrum, ICT innovation and investment opportunities. He said the implementation within the period also facilitated strategic collaboration and partnership, empowered and protected consumers, enhanced fair competition and inclusive growth, as well as ensured regulatory excellence and operational efficiency.
As a follow-up and based on the need to take the commission to greater heights, the NCC facilitated the development of another Strategic Vision Plan, which was unveiled on September 7, 2021. In developing the new SVP (2021 – 2025), NCC took cognizance of the several notable advancements in the Nigerian telecommunications industry within the last five years of the previous SVP, as well as the current global realities. The realities, all of which have been incorporated into the current SVP, include the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s strategic plan (2020 – 2023), the commission’s Strategic Management Plan (SMP) 2020-2024, the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) 2020-2030 for a digital Nigeria, the National Broadband Plan (NBP) 2020-2025 and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the federal government.
The new SVP 2021-2025 has five visions namely: Organizational Renewal for Operational Efficiency and Regulatory Excellence; Facilitate the Provision of Infrastructure for a Digital Economy which fosters National Development; Promote Fair Competition, Inclusive Growth, Increased investment and Innovative Services; Improve Quality of Service (QoS) for Enhanced Consumer Quality of Experience (QoE); and Facilitate Strategic Collaboration and Partnership.
One important aspect of the current SVP is the implementation metrics put in the place, which provides for tasks to be done and the timelines under which they should be carried out.
According to Adebayo, “That is one main departure from the previous SVP. In the current SVP, there is an implementation matrix. Responsibilities are being assigned to various departments of the commission and more importantly, there is provision for monitoring and evaluation. So, at any given point in time, in the process of implementation of the plan, NCC can be able to tell Nigerians who its critical stakeholders are, how far the commission has gone, and what more it needs to do in order to attain the desired objectives specified in the plan for the development of the Nigerian economy.”
Contribution to GDP
The telecoms industry has remained a major contributor to national economy with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry contributing 18.94 per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as at the second quarter of 2022, according to the latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
According to the statistics, telecommunications sector alone contributed 15 percent to GDP as of the second quarter of, 2022 up from 8.5 percent in 2015.
From less than $500 million investment in 2001, the investment profile in the nation’s telecommunications sector hit $38 billion in 2015 when the current Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of NCC, Prof. Umar Garb Danbatta assumed office and has further surpassed $70 billion till date..
Active telecoms subscribers have grown significantly to reach 222 million with a teledensity of 116.60 per cent in December 2022 from about 400,000 aggregate telephone lines in the country as at the year 2000. Teledensity has grown from 109.47 per cent in July 2022, to 116.60 per cent in December 2022.
According to Danbatta, basic Internet subscriptions grew from zero ground to 152 million in July 2022, with a further growth to 154 million in December 2022, while broadband subscriptions grew from 85 million, representing a 44.49 per cent penetration as at July 2022, to 90 million subscriptions in December 2022, representing 47.36 per cent penetration level.
InfraCos Project
Giving details of the Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos) created by NCC to drive development in the telecom sector, and deepen broadband penetration, Danbatta said NCC increased the number of licensed InfraCo from two in 2015 to six.
According to him, the InfraCos are to deploy broadband infrastructure, on a wholesale basis, in the 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria. He however said: “Funding and the entire InfraCo framework is currently being reviewed to keep it in line with the current economic reality.”
In the area of data, there has been a reduction in data by well over 75 per cent from $11.15 in mid-2014 to $2.78 at the end of 2019, according to a report by Research ICT Africa’s (RIA’s) 1GB Basket Statistics. The report said average cost of data now has come down to around N500 from N1000 per Gigabyte of data, considering the fact that most operators now offer 2GB of data for N1000.
Spectrum Revenue Generation
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has raked in trillions of naira for the federal government, through the auction of spectrum licence for 5G rollout.
In December 2021, NCC conducted the auction of 3.5Ghz spectrum to deploy 5G network across Nigeria, where MTN and Mafab Communications emerged as the winners. From the auction, the NCC raked in over $500 million which was remitted into the federal government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF), as prescribed by law. On September 18, 2022, MTN held a commercial launch of its 5G services in Lagos. This is in addition to the revenue earlier generated by the commission between 2015 and early 2020, wherein the commission had remitted N344.71 billion to federal government’s CRF from spectrum fees and operating surplus. The NCC, under Danbatta, also embarked on spectrum auctions, re-planning, re-farming to optimise the usage of the scarce resource, especially as facilitated by the SVP 2015-2020.
In December 2022, NCC carried out another 5G licence auction, which saw Airtel winning the licence, and that was another source of income generated for government by NCC.
Quality of Service
NCC has consistently addressed the quality of service delivery through effective monitoring of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and development of KPIs for 3G and 4G to enhance quality of service experience for telecoms consumers. Although there are still some glitches in service quality, Adebayo said the destruction of telecoms facilities in some parts of the country, incessant closure of telecoms site by some government agencies that impose high levies on telecom operations in their states, were responsible for the minor glitches in telecom services currently been experienced by some telecom subscribers.
In 2016, Danbatta’s intervention led to the reduction of the Ground Fee Rate imposed on IHS by Ogun State government from N370 million down to N120 million, leading to the unsealing of 47 Base Transceiver Station (BTS). In 2017, NCC’s intervention led to the waiver of N221 million RoW fee for MTN in Kano. Also, in 2018, Danbatta’s intervention in Kogi helped in the unsealing of 20 BTS hub sites.
Adebayo therefore called for the reduction in Right of Way (RoW) fees imposed by some state governments, in order to fast-track telecoms infrastructure deployment.
Danbatta however said NCC would continue to prioritise consumer issues and strengthen consumer protection. According to him, the declaration of 2017 by NCC as the Year of the Consumer with Consumer-centric initiatives was aimed at protecting the rights, interests and privileges of the consumers. He said NCC introduced the Do-Not-Disturb (DND) 2442 Short Code for consumers to stop cases of unsolicited marketing messages on their respective networks. “Around 30 million activations till date from 500,000 in 2015, was carried out. The commission created a second layer complaint toll free line, 622 for consumers to escalate complaints to the level of the commission. The commission will continue to drive increased consumer education through major outreach programmes across the go-poetical zones,” Danbatta said.
Between 2015 and 2019, 262,206, which is about 95 per cent out of the 276, 112 complaints lodged by the consumers were successfully resolved. Also, of the total 11,327 complaints received in 2020, 11,288 (99.1 per cent) were resolved. Through 2021 to 2022, the NCC ensured resolution of over 90 per cent of total complaints escalated to the commission by telecom consumers for resolutions.
Corporate Governance
The NCC commenced a regime of voluntary compliance to mandatory compliance to the Code of Corporate Governance for Telecoms Sector issued in 2016 to drive down overall corporate management risks and enhance business prosperity and corporate accountability.
The NCC, under Danbatta, asides several other interventions since 2015, embarked on such projects as Wireless Internet Cloud, Laptop Project, Computer-Based Test (CBT) Centres project and ICT Park project. All the projects are aimed at enhancing digital access across the country.
The Commission, in 2021, created the Centre for Computer Security Incident Response (CSIRT) with the overall mandates to ensure continuous improvement of processes and communication frameworks to guarantee secure and collaborative exchange of timely information while responding to cyber threats within the sector. The NCC CSIRT is the Commission’s industry-specific intervention, whose objectives are aligned to the National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy (NCPS) published by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). The NCPS requires each sector to establish a computer incident response team provides requisite services to the stakeholders and players within each sector. Since its establishment November, 2021, the CSIRT has churned out a lot of cybersecurity advisories to alert consumers on identified cyber vulnerabilities while the Centre has also diffused similar information from Nigeria Computer Emergency Response Team (ngCERT). The essence of CSIRT is to ensure adequate protection for telecom consumers against cyber threats while online.
Culled from ThisDay Newspaper
