The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has warned telecom operators to comply 100 percent with regulatory guidelines or face sanctions.
The Executive Vice Chairman, EVC of the Commission, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, sounded the warning, Tuesday, in his welcome address at the “Meet The Regulator Forum” on Promoting regulatory Compliance Through Dialogue held in Abuse.
Danbatta, who was represented by Mr. Sunday Dare, the Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management, urged the service providers to acquaint themselves with their license documents.
He said, “It will be rather elementary for us to begin you lecture you on the need to study your license documents; to familiarize yourselves with NCC’s regulations and guidelines, and to ensure 100 percent compliance with applicable regulatory instruments so as to avoid sanctions
“The NCC developed a strategic vision of being “a responsive, world class-class communications regulatory organisation.
“It is true that our efforts in this direction has been globally acclaimed. But we have no doubts that we can only continue to pursue this vision by effectively meeting the aspirations of our key stakeholders.
“It is generally agreed that Nigeria’s telecoms industry has attained its enviable heights through the combination of stable regulation and private sector commitment supported by an enabling environment provided by government.
“But we should ask ourselves is the “Operator-regulator relationship” healthy enough to sustain the successful operations of the industry?
“Emerging economies like Nigeria are placing higher degrees of reliance on telecoms infrastructure to drive socio-economic growth. We are looking at the pervasive use of ICT in education, health, and social services, the increasing digitalization of manufacturing and the processes; the widespread use of IoT and other technologies, as well as the early roll out of 5G network to drive these game-changers.
“More importantly, the industry landscape is changing. Traditional enabled competing service models which work outside the scope of regulators and organisations are being challenged to innovative or die.
“The NCC is very clear that its role is to facilitate the successful operation of our licensees. We are clear that the operator-regulator relation is a symbiotic one which requires us to enable our licensees to succeed. We are prepared to facilitate the speedier and more efficient availability of regulatory resources like spectrum, numbering, approval among other things.
“We are working on streamlining our processes to address your concerns about turnaround speed. We shall also continue to impartially perform the responsibilities imposed on us by our role as independent regulators of the telecoms industry,” the EVC of the Commission stated.
