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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has disclosed that it generated N150 billion from spectrum licence fees between January and May 2021.
This was contained in a statement signed on Sunday by Ikechukwu Adinde, NCC’s Director of Public Affairs.
The commission said it surpassed its N36 billion projected revenue from the spectrum fees for 2021.
According to the statement, the figure represents over 400 per cent increase in revenue budget performance with respect to spectrum fees generated by the commission in five months.
It said this reflects a significant contribution to the revenue drive of the Federal Government.
The commission said the N150 billion spectrum revenue achieved in the first half of the year has been remitted to the Federal Government in line with the provisions of the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA), 2003, which mandates it to remit proceeds from spectrum resources wholly into the government’s consolidated revenue fund (CRF).
Commenting on the revenue performance, the Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Umar Danbatta, said the uptick in spectrum fee was the result of the favourable turn of events for the telecom sector, which at the time of preparing the estimates for the 2021 budget of the commission was not clear due to the ravaging impact of COVID-19 on the global economy.
Danbatta said the 10-year spectrum fees made by some of the major operators directly impacted the projected spectrum fee favourably, adding that NCC believes that enthronement of effective regulation will continue to improve the general performance of the telecoms sector.
The statement added that NCC has put in place an effective regulatory regime, which has significantly facilitated advancements in Nigeria’s telecoms industry, improved the operations of licences, boosted gross domestic product (GDP) and Gederal Government’s revenue generation.
In October 2020, NCC announced that it had generated and remitted N344.71 billion in revenue to the Federal Government’s CRF in the last five years.