NCC reassures investors of level play, as Standard Bank Group visits

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has assured current and potential investors of a level playing field in the country.The Commission gave the assurance at the weekend in Abuja, when it played host to visiting Standard Bank from South Africa.

The Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, (NCC), Sunday Dare, who received the delegation on behalf of the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, said the Commission has sole statutory mandate for the economic, technical and commercial regulation of the telecoms industry.

The NCC, Dare said, supervises a $68 billion investments telecom industry, and has a clear mandate to create a conducive atmosphere for investment inflows into the economy in Nigeria, and does that with rules that are clear, transparently made, uniformly applied and fairly enforced.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings (a member of Standard Bank Group) visited the Commission in efforts to create enabling environment for international and local investments, and meet with select organisations over strategic investment opportunities.

“we are committed to providing a level playing field for all stakeholders,” Dare affirmed, adding that the NCC is focused on ensuring industry sustainability, and creating fresh investment opportunities through a number of actions. These include aggressively tackling ecosystem challenges (Access to forex, Multiple taxation, Rights of way; carrying out a comprehensive review of the Licensing framework and processes; pursuing new options for spectrum efficiency (Spectrum sharing/trading, releasing new spectrum, among others). Also addressing pricing issues, which impact business decisions (cost studies on interconnect and data pricing are ongoing, adding that a market study is also underway.

Head of Competition and Tariff, (NCC), Abubakar Yakubu, narrated how the industry has witnessed unprecedented growth in terms of subscriptions to telecom services, network roll out, infrastructural development and investments.

According to him, the Nigerian market is ranked as the fastest growing industry amongst emerging markets in Africa.He said investment opportunities in the Nigerian telecoms industry abound in the areas of equipment and services, infrastructure, products and services, manufacturing plants, warehousing and logistics and service delivery to end users.

The Standard Bank Group led by Country/Sovereign Risk Manager, Kevin Orpen, thanked the Commission for hosting the delegation and for the insights the Group received on the Nigerian telecoms industry, adding that they were very encouraged by the Commission.