By Umar Muhammad Puma
Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Eugene Juwah, has said yesterday that the commission had fined the three telecommunication giant MTN, Airtel and Glo, N667 million for going against their regulations.
“Just two weeks ago, we fined three service providers, MTN, Airtel and Glo, N667 million for going against certain regulations. We also stopped them from carrying out any promo and taking new subscribers”.
Juwah, made the disclosure before the House of Representatives Committee on communication, while defending N54.4 billion as the budget of the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) for the 2014 fiscal year.
The House expressed satisfaction over NCC’s efforts at transforming the communications sector and approved the sum of N54.4 billion as the budget of the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) for the 2014 fiscal year.
Juwah, had earlier told the committee that his commission planned to spend the sum of N54.4 billion out of which N14.8 billion was for recurrent expenditure, with capital and special expenditure having N15.8 billion, while the sum of N8.4 billion would be transferred to the Universal Service Provision Fund.
He said N7.4 billion and N8 billion, representing spectrum fees and operating surplus respectively would be transferred to the Federation Account.
However, before approving the budget, some of the lawmakers raised concerns over poor GSM services across the country, saying the commission needed to do more in that regard.
Responding, Juwah said the commission only monitors quality of service and sets out acceptable guidelines of operations for the service providers, but they do not have the powers to withdraw the licenses.
“We only regulate them in line with the laws we operate under. We’re the fastest growing market in Africa, so we’re doing a lot on quality service. That is why we’re asking for some money in the budget,” he said.
Consequently, chairman of the committee, Oyetunde Ojo (APC, Ekiti) put the question on the approval of the budget, while members present unanimously approved the amount.
My dad use to say, “this too shall pass”
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