Bill to enhance quality delivery in telecoms sector underway

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said it is coming up with a bill on telecommunication critical infrastructure that will enhance quality service delivery in the telecommunications sector. When passed into law, it will curtail vandalism of telecommunication infrastructure and fibre cuts due to road networks, shutting
off of services by state governments, right of ways restrictions as well as planning permit restrictions. This was disclosed on Monday by the NCC executive vice chairman, Eugene Juwah, while defending the 2015 budget estimates of the communications regulatory agency before the Senate Committee on Communications. Juwah also hinted that the bill will improve the quality of service in the telecoms sector. He explained,

“The other major focus that we have for 2015 is the issue of quality of service which is made up mainly of two parts. One is an issue that can be controlled by the operators, that is the capacity issue and we have been monitoring their parameters and analysing them or advising them accordingly. “The other part is made up of outside their purview and to tackle this issue we have in conjunction with the National Assembly a bill on Telecom Critical Infrastructure which we hope that will be presented to the National Assembly and be given accelerated hearing. And we hope that most likely it will be in the interest of telecom members and this committee in particular, if this bill is passed during this parliamentary session.

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“This bill will deal with vandalism of telecommunication infrastructure and fibre cuts due to road networks, shutting off of services by state governments, planning permit restrictions, right of ways restrictions and we hope that if this bill is passed all these problems will be reduced and there will be a remarkable improvement in the quality of service”. The NCC chief executive also disclosed that capital budget expenditure proposal in 2015 is about 30 percent increase over that of the preceding year, 2014. According to him, while the capital budget expenditure profile of the agency for the year 2014 was N15 billion, its 2015 capital budget proposal is N21.1 billion. He, however, said that estimated budget expenditure for special projects by the commission for the year 2015 is N2.1 billion as opposed to N3.4 billion expended in 2014. He disclosed that a very key capital project the agency would be embarking upon this year is the broadband project which has made the agency award licences for Lagos and Abuja for provision of metropolitan fibre network