The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has said after generating over $500 million (about N220 billion) for Nigeria, the regulator is targeting more revenue from another auction round of the 5G spectrum.
Danbatta, who was speaking during a visit by the management of Media Trust Group, publishers of Daily Trust franchise and Trust TV, yesterday in Abuja, said: “We need to do more and create more by leveraging on 5G services to create more opportunities to make our society more productive and add to the GDP per capita.
NCC generates $500m from 5G Spectrum licence auction
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We are getting ready to do another auction. And there will be two 5G auctions within a span of a year. We have the resources and we have the entities interested in the spectrum and the government needs money.”
“When we did the last auction, we generated over half a billion dollars for the government and we hope to generate more. There are now commercial services on the network and what we have started with is the enhanced mobile Broadband services. The speed has gone much higher than we know and it is at an affordable cost.”
He also said the proliferation of the 5G network will increase productivity in all sectors of the economy, thereby increasing Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product.
He said eight states are to benefit from the initial rollout of the services but by the first year, 5G services would be present in every part of the country.
While speaking on the revenue assurance system which was approved to verify the amount of taxes payable as an Annual Operating Levy to the NCC, he said the commission has warned telecommunications providers that if the new system discovers they are paying less of what they are supposed to pay, the commission would make a case for the difference to be paid.
“We are good to go any moment from now. We do rely on the levy to pay salaries and allowances of our staff and provide interventions in the diverse areas of information and communication technology to schools, communities, and universities.”
Speaking, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Media Trust, Mr. Mounir Haliru Gwarzo, urged the commissioning to leverage all platforms of Media Trust to inform citizens of its activities.
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