NCC Behind Nigeria's N600bn Annual Loss

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has being accused of causing Nigeria to lose N600bn annually.

File Photo of NCC | itsallisay.com

Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, made the accusation in a letter to NCC.

According to SaharaReporters, Femi Falana, has issued a two-week ultimatum to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to release the contract award letter to facilitate the collection of NCC's 2.5 per cent annual operating levy and other government taxes from the Nigerian telecommunication industry.

He gave the ultimatum in a letter addressed to Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the NCC, dated December 18, 2018.

Falana accused NCC of "deliberately refusing to issue the contract award letter to enable the successful consultant to deploy the software and save Nigeria from further loss of huge revenue".

According to the lawyer,

We have confirmed that the Nigerian Communication Commission under your management has since concluded the procurement process for the deployment of the revenue assurance solution that will aid the government to block the leakages associated with the revenue collection and ensure that the revenue of over N600 billion that ought to accrue to the government from the Nigerian Telecommunication Industry is monitored, analyzed and collected automatically and deposited in the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

The refusal of NCC to issue the contract award letter is causing the nation to lose revenue of over N600 billion per annum.

Meanwhile, the NCC has assured the general public that none of the over 160 million telecoms subscribers in Nigeria will be disconnected or suffer service disruptions as a result of its recent order to permit the disconnection of indebted operators from other operators’ networks.

The assurance was given in Abuja by NCC’s  Executive Commissioner for Stakeholder Management, Sunday Dare.

Dare clarified that the approval given by the NCC was not for any network to disconnect subscribers, but for some creditor networks to restrict services to debtor networks.