NCC seeks quicker passage of bill to criminalise vandalism of telecoms infrastructure

Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) wants the National Assembly to expedite action on the passage of Telecom Infrastructure Bill that will criminalise vandalism of telecoms facilities in Nigeria. This will also enable the country achieve the set target of 30 percent broadband penetration by 2018.

Umar Garba Danbatta, executive vice chairman of NCC, made the disclosure on Wednesday in Abuja, at a public lecture titled, “The National Broadband Plan as a Catalyst for Social and Economic Transformation: The NCC Mandate,” said this had become necessary owing to the several attacks on telecom infrastructure in the country, which threatens the commissions target of ensuring 30 percent broadband coverage by 2018.

“The target is that unless we protect the huge investments that have been made to provide such critical infrastructure, we may not be able to reach the 30 percent broadband penetration that we seriously yearn for by 2018,” Danbatta said.

The NCC also wants to use the Academy of Engineers as a lobby to ensure that both chambers of the National Assembly agree to pass the bill that will make telecoms infrastructure critical infrastructure, such as water infrastructure and other critical infrastructure in the country, while criminalising any form of vandalism of the infrastructure, he said.

“Telecom infrastructure belongs to the same bracket like the other infrastructure providers. Telecoms infrastructure is crucial for the economic and social transformation of the country and therefore should be protected just like the government is protecting other facilities,” he emphasised.

Speaking further on the plans to quicken the broadband penetration in the country, he said, “The Commission has identified InfraCo (a broadband infrastructure company) to close the gaps identified in the broadband penetration, which would enable it meet the 2018 penetration targets.

“With this collaboration, you have both intra and inter fibre network across the country. We have established committee that will supervise the deployments of the fibre that would plug the fibre gaps.

“The committee would be the one monitoring and ensuring we do what is called targeted deployments, where there are fibre infrastructure gaps. The incentives we are giving are in licensing framework in terms of the fibre infrastructure provision. We also have an incentive we are giving to achieve the milestones.”

It would be noted that every 10 percent in broadband penetration in developing countries result in a commensurate increase of 1.3 percent in GDP.

Also, Nigeria’s Active Mobile Broadband Penetration has reached 20.95 percent relative to less than 10 percent a year ago. Furthermore, the percentage of Broadband Internet Penetration has reached a milestone of 47.44 percent, second to South Africa, which Danbatta said would be achieved with effective implementation of the National Broadband Plan.