Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has stressed the need for 9mobile to get new investors to demonstrate technical competence in managing the operations of the telecommunications company.
Umar Garba Danbatta, executive vice chairman of NCC, who received the new management of the board of 9mobile led by Nasir Ado Bayero, chairman, at the NCC headquarters in Abuja at the weekend, called on the 9mobile management to address its institutional structure by ensuring that core professionals were hired to pilot its activities towards delivery of good quality of service (QoS) to its consumers, whose confidence in the fortune of the telecoms company had been re-ignited.
The regulatory body said the health of the company was of utmost importance to the industry, hence, “the interventions at the initial stage of take-over from Etisalat (now 9mobile) became necessary in order to address the decreasing subscriber base on 9mobile, save the country from image problem, instill investor’s confidence in the telecoms market and prevent loss of jobs among Nigerians.
“By successfully mid-wifing the take-over of 9mobile by new investors, we are happy that the joint regulatory interventions have culminated in the stabilisation of the telecom industry as well as calming frayed nerves in the financial services sector of the economy. One can imagine the consequences to these two important sectors of the economy, if we had not intervened in a timely manner,” Danbatta said.
The NCC chief specifically called on the management of 9mobile to ensure it runs a process-driven operation that make all its stakeholders happy on a long-term basis in line with the provision of the 2016 Code of Corporate Governance for Telecommunications Industry, whose provisions had become mandatory on all licensees to comply with.
Earlier, Nasir Ado Bayero told his host that his company was appreciative of the role NCC had been playing in piloting the affairs of the telecoms industry.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the NCC for giving us this chance to explain and present ourselves to the Commission. We are most grateful to the EVC and we, indeed, commend the NCC’s collaborations with the CBN and Federal Government for intervening at the time they did,” he said.
In his remarks, Stephane Beuvelet, acting managing director of 9mobile, who was excited that the telecom company had been put on the path of rebound, said in the last three months of having new management and board in place, “9mobile subscriber base rose from 15.3 million to over 16 million.”
Beuvelet said 9mobile subscribers stood at over 20 million before the crisis started but dropped to around 15 million in the wake of the incidence that led to its being taken over by new investors.
Beuvelet added that the number of subscribers on its Long Term Evolution (LTE) platform subscribers stood at 192,000 back in November 2018, but had now exceeded 235,000.
“What all these data point to is that we have actually, in a sense, restored trust in our subscribers who reactivated their Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards and we are quite pleased about this rebound which we are ready to sustain. However, we will continue to seek the support of the regulator in sustaining our investment in Nigeria,” he said
