Continuous dialogue critical to tackling telecoms industry challenges – NCC boss, Danbatta

Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has stated that ongoing dialogue between the regulator and its various licensees is critical to finding long-term solutions to issues affecting licensee compliance with existing regulations and posing a challenge to the telecoms industry’s growth.

Danbatta mentioned this during the NCC’s 2021 Talk to The Regulator (TTTR) session, which was held over the weekend at the Four Points by Sheraton in Lagos.

The discussion’s theme is “Improving Stakeholder Satisfaction.”

The program’s Lagos iteration came after a successful holding of a similar dialogue in Kano on October 16, 2021.

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The goal of the event is to gather direct input from licensees on how the Commission is achieving their expectations as a regulator.

The initiative was also created to identify areas for regulatory reform, highlight areas where licensees are defaulting, and address major industry obstacles that are impeding the full realization of the established goals for consolidating telecoms sector benefits.

According to Danbatta, who was represented at the forum by NCC Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Adeleke Adewolu, the forum is organized in accordance with the Commission’s commitment to continuously ensure regulator-licensee interactions in order to develop collaborative solutions and implementation programs to the telecom ecosystem’s challenges.

“The Nigerian Communications Act (NCA, 2003) gives the NCC with the authority and responsibility to regulate both technical and market-related aspects of Nigeria’s telecoms infrastructure and services. Because NCC views consultation to be the lifeblood of regulation, we see our position as regulator as critical to ensuring industry sustainability,” the EVC stated.

“We have constantly utilized stakeholder engagement mechanisms like public inquiries, private investigations, written information requests, one-on-one dialogues like the ones we’re conducting now, and varied consumer engagement platforms,” the EVC added.

“We can use these techniques to ensure that our interventions are well-founded and that our judgments are based on a thorough grasp of the perspectives of stakeholders.”

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Regulatory Excellence, Promotion of Universal Broadband Access, Development of the Digital Economy, Facilitation of Market Development, and Strategic Partnering are among the five pillars of the Commission’s Strategic Management Plan (2020-2024), according to Danbatta.

“Through regular interactions with our licensees, the Commission is able to gain valuable insights to improve our regulatory output, enabling us to drive excellence in accordance with the five pillars of our strategic vision for the industry as outlined in the Commission’s Strategic Vision Plan (SVP), 2021-2025,” he said.

The EVC also reaffirmed the Commission’s belief that Nigeria will only be able to achieve the national objectives and targets set out in the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) 2020-2030, the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP) 2020-2025, and other national policy instruments aimed at developing the country’s digital economy ecosystem if licensees perform optionally.

“As a result, we intend to use this forum to seek support for many initiatives that the commission has carefully developed in our quest to enhance market opportunities for all our licensees,” Danbatta said, emphasizing NCC’s belief in collaboration with stakeholders and its licensees to address any concerns that may obstruct the achievement of the relevant policy objectives.

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The NCC CEO further stated that the Commission will continue to implement forward-thinking and all-encompassing regulatory actions to ensure that all of its licensees have access to the market. Danbatta also stated that the NCC is committed to reviewing the licensing framework as well as key regulatory instruments on a regular basis in order to keep the Commission’s regulatory frameworks up to date and ensure better service delivery for consumers as well as efficient achievement of other national interest goals.

However, according to Danbatta, some licensees are not doing as much as they should. “Several licensees are having difficulty paying their employees, many are unable to meet basic license obligations, and several are defaulting on their Annual Operating Levies (AOL), while interconnect and other inter-licensee debt remains unacceptably large.”

As a result, we must guarantee that regulatory measures are in place to resolve issues, bottlenecks, and grievances that may occur among licensees,” he said.

The Director, Licensing and Authorisation at NCC, Mohammed Babajika, also spoke at the event, saying that the purpose of the forum was to foster a harmonious relationship with licensees, identify their challenges, and provide feedback on licensees’ compliance with their license obligations, as well as to re-emphasize the role of licensees in ensuring good quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) for consumers.

Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and its resulting challenges, Babajika said the Commission was taking steps to further liberalize the telecoms industry by finalizing the framework for Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) and reviewing existing licensing regulations, while informing licensees of some regulatory initiatives focused on licensing issues.

The Director also informed the licensees that the Commission was nearing completion on an Information Memorandum (IM) for the deployment of Fifth Generation (5G) technology, which will promote emerging technology trends such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Over-The-Top (OTT) Services and Big Data Analytics, as well as Blockchain.

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At the event, the Commission’s management team presented presentations to licensees and others, who actively participated by listening, providing observations and comments, and asking explanations in order to improve the quality of the conversation and the intended outcomes.