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By Emmanuel Adeleke
In line with its mandate to create opportunities to interact with its licensees on industry issues and new trends via stakeholder fora, the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) is holding a two-day Talk-to-the-Regulator stakeholders consultative forum between Thursday June 1 and Friday June 2 in Yenegoa, Bayelsa State capital.
Talk-to-the-Regulator is an annual stakeholders’ consultation forum and was conceptualised to educate licensees on their various license obligations, provide a platform where licensees can openly discuss challenges experienced in the course of operations ,assess the impact of emerging trends in the Nigerian telecoms space and together with the commission proffer solutions among others.
Speaking at the two-day forum, tagged, “Enhancing Stakeholders’ Satisfaction,” the
Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, said the telecoms industry has witnessed milestones in more ways than one, including the rapid growth in technology, which is redefining service delivery and creating wide and high expectations from all stakeholders.
“The Nigeria Communications Commission, in keeping with its mandate, creates opportunities to interact with its licensees on industry issues and new trends via stakeholder fora, with a view to gathering relevant information that would further advance the development of the industry, while improving regulations and service delivery to telecom consumers.
“To keep up to date with developments in the industry, the commission has equally taken measures to improve regulations to accommodate the rapid and continuous development.
“Over 150 million Nigerians have access to internet, while over 80 million can access high speed internet,” he said.
The NCC boss listed some other interventions and responses of the commission to include facilitating the roll-out of 5G service, provision and providing industry leadership to facilitate the achievement of 90% broadband penetration by year 2025, and well above 50% at the end of 2023, in line with the Nigeria National Broadband Plan (NNBP 2020 – 2025).
Also, the Zonal Controller of NCC, Port Harcourt Zonal Office, Venny Eze, said the event is expected to provide a veritable platform for interaction between the regulator and the licensees.
She urged the participants to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the forum to engage in robust discussions while proffering solutions to certain topical issues of concern that would be raised in the course of the engagement
“It is a rare occasion that would enable the commission to identify the challenges confronting the industry from the pragmatic point of view of the industry players. In other words, licensees are expected to engage the regulator, through robust discussions, with a view to identifying the various challenges affecting their operations, while making suggestions requiring regulatory interventions within the mandate of the NCC,” Eze said.