Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) has pledged to engage with key stakeholders to resolve the issues of multiple taxation and Right of Way charges to enhance the growth of telecom industry in the country.
Dr. Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman/ Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), stated this on Tuesday at a media parley in Abuja.
Maida pointed out that mobile telecom operators are faced with issues of multiple taxation and high charges for Right of Way (RoW) in some States across the Federation while deploying their services.
He assured that the Commission would collaborate with stakeholders to tackle these challenges for the overall development of the telecommunications sector.
According to him, the Commission would embark on more awareness creation to enlighten the state governments on the need to waive the Right of Way (RoW) charge or reduce it for the operators to lay fibre cables in each state across the country.
Speaking about the Right of Way and multiple taxation charged by states, Maida said: “Imagine the economic activity that will be enabled if we build digital infrastructure in all our states. So we need to work together to remove some of these barriers and work towards building digital infrastructure.
“So, working with the honorable Minister and other MDAs, we are going to be going on an advocacy campaign to see how we can convince the states to remove some of these obstacles like right of way charges and multiple taxation because I have seen some studies which indicate taxation is almost 50% getting to 55% in some areas in this country and you would agree with me that if we are trying to bring in foreign investment, that is not a good picture to print.”
While unveiling his new strategies to reposition the telecoms industry, the NCC boss said consumer satisfaction would be at the core of his strategy, as he would put smiles on the faces of consumers.
Maida, who listed the strategies he would deploy to address various issues affecting the telecoms sector, said “my vision is to put smiles on the faces of telecoms consumers in Nigeria by improving the quality of services being offered them by service providers as well as increase investments in the sector.
“Consumers pay for their services and they expect high quality of service from the providers.
“Everything for me starts with the Consumers. The expectation of the consumers is very simple, which is, high quality of service.
“By this quality of service, we are talking about whole quality of experience for consumers.
“One of the mandates given to us by the honorable Minister of Communication which he also derived from the President and Commander -in- Chief is that we need to attract more foreign investments into the sector but there is no way we can do that if we are not satisfying the consumers because the consumers are the ones who pay for the services.
“This means the licensees can make their returns and investments, so we are going to be introducing some measures to help in this regard simply to improve the Ease of Doing Business.”
