Nigerian regulator to focus on ongoing projects

NIGERIA’S telecoms regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC) said it plans to fast-track the completion of ongoing projects designed to increase access to broadband and telecommunications services in the country’s fast growing telecoms industry.

Acting Executive Vice Chairman of the commission, Steven Adedayo Bello, said that the focus of the management of the Commission at this time was to fast-track the completion of ongoing projects designed to increase access to broadband and telecommunications services in Nigeria.

Addressing Information Technology IT) experts in Lagos recently, Bello said the Commission was committed to their duties and responsibilities.

“The Commission is already reputed as a foremost Telecom regulator in Africa and we have to sustain this gain and conquer more grounds in keeping with our mission,” he noted.

He also reiterated his earlier position on protecting the rights of consumers as he declared that the yearning of telecoms consumers was a priority to the management of NCC.

In this regard, he said management has considered using Price Cap as an instrument to reduce the cost of telecommunication services and to ensure value for money on every service delivered in the sector.

Bello urged staff of the Commission to be free in expressing their views on how the Commission could improve on the fulfillment of its mandate.

He said the SIM Card Registration project has taken off and management is also to review the processes designed to flag-off the Number Portability programme, which he hoped will widen the frontiers of choice available to telecom consumers.

Finally, Bello promised Senior Staff of the Commission that meetings and consultations will be a regular feature at the Commission under his leadership and advised management staff to sustain other arrangements already instituted at the departmental level to generate ideas from all staff for the benefit of the commission.

IKECHUKWU OSODO in Lagos, Nigeria