….To Parley Governors On Excessive Taxes, Levies
The Executive Vice Chairman of the National Communication Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, on Tuesday unveiled a 5-pillar visionary agenda aimed at ensuring that stakeholders in the nation’s telecommunications industry were satisfied with the quality of services with the attendant implications for attracting more investments into the industry and improving its contributions to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on yearly basis.
Maida, who spoke on the thematic pillars of his focus during an interactive session with journalists in Abuja, specifically promised to vigorously focus on the people (consumers), collaborate with other stakeholders, promote data-driven economy, ensure compliance with regulatory guidelines, and support the government on the current digitalization agenda for a win-win situation for all.
The industry regulator maintained that he would commit all resources at his disposal, working in collaboration with the NCC’s staff and the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, to address the current challenges of customers and telecom services providers and work with other stakeholders, particularly the government, to grow the industry on a sustainable basis.
Specifically, the EVC harped on prioritizing consumers’ needs as all activities in the industry are targeted at them, make the industry more resilient by strengthening the agencies and institutions that are supporting the commission in the drive to fulfil its mandate of standardizing telecom services and creating enabling environment in order to attract more investments to the industry.
While seeking the collaboration of the media as key partner in the commission’s sustained initiatives to improve quality of services, attract investments into the industry and collaborate with the telecom operators and the government, the industry regulator said that the NCC’s management under his leadership would prioritize stakeholders’ engagement and be sensitive to their contributions in the drive to grow the industry.
Maida said: “Our strategic vision is driven by the recognition that each of our stakeholders maintains a unique perspective and have different expectations of the commission.”
He pointed out that in order to attract the needed investments for improved contributions of the industry to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the commission would continue to provide regulatory guidelines that will make the environment more investor friendly and by so doing, increase investor confidence in the telecom industry.
Speaking on some of challenges to growing the industry, the EVC identified the issue of multiplicity of taxes, including Right of Way (RoW) levies being imposed by the state government as a major one and urged the state governors to help in removing all fiscal constraints that may hamper the growth of the industry.
Maida lamented that with between 50 to 55 percent taxes already imposed on telecom operators, it would be difficult to attract investments into the industry.
According to him, as part of the efforts to reduce taxes in the industry, the NCC management has decided to embark on nationwide advocacy to appeal to states and local governments as well as other stakeholders on the need to reduce the taxes and other levies.
The EVC said: “We are going to be going on an advocacy campaign to see how we can convince the states to remove some of these obstacles like Right of Way and multiple taxations because I have seen some studies which indicate taxation is almost 50% getting to 55% in some areas in this country.
“And you would agree with me that if we are trying to bring in foreign investment that is not a good picture to paint,” the NCC boss added.
While acknowledging the complaints by subscribers about poor quality of services, the industry regulator hinted that the Commission would adopt “a total consumer experience” to address the challenges.
He said: “Our approach will thus be to walk towards the expectations of these stakeholders, and everything for me starts with the consumer and the expectation of the consumer is very simple – quality of service.
“I don’t think you can say anything more than that. Quality of service and this quality of service, we are talking about a total consumer experience not just about drop calls or I can’t make a call”, the EVC added
