NCC reassures investors of level playing field as Standard Bank group visits

In its avowed mandate to regulate the telecommunications sector in line with global best practices and sustain investors’ confidence in Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications  Commission (NCC) has assured current and potential investors of a level playing field.

This assurance was reinforced recently when a delegation from Standard Bank Group visited the Commission in Abuja.

Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, (NCC), Mr. Sunday Dare who received the delegation on behalf of the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Prof.Umar Garba Danbatta said that 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 dollar 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 as part of its 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 assuring industry sustainability and creating fresh investment opportunities through actions such as:

• Aggressively tackling ecosystem challenges(Access to forex,  Multiple taxation, Rights of way, etc

• Carrying out a Comprehensive review of our Licensing framework and processes

• Pursuing new options for spectrum efficiency(Spectrum sharing/trading, releasing new spectrum, etc)
• Addressing pricing issues

which impact business decisions (cost studies on interconnect and data pricing are ongoing. A market study is also underway In his presentation, “Overview of the Nigerian Telecommunications Industry”, Head of Competition and Tariff, (NCC), Mr. 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 stated that the 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 Mr. Kevin Orpen, Country/Sovereign Risk Manager thanked the Commission for hosting the delegation and for the insights the group has received on the Nigerian Telecoms Industry adding that they were very encouraged by the Commission’s processes and these will certainly guide further inflow of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs)