The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has said leveraging the potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to automate service delivery should be the next frontier of excellent service delivery by public institutions in the country.
Danbatta made this remark in a goodwill message presented on his behalf by NCC’s Director, Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, at the opening ceremony of a three-day SERVICOM retreat held on December 1 in Abuja.
The retreat, which has as theme ‘Charter Performance Monitoring and Reporting’, was organized with the aim of monitoring the implementation of the NCC’s Client Service Charter, identifying gaps, measuring and evaluating the progress of service delivery in the Commission.
Speaking at the event attended by staff of the commission, Adinde said the NCC had been living up to its expectation as one of the public institutions that have continued to implement the Service Charter with all its various stakeholders.
The Director Public Affairs further pointed out that the ongoing digital economy drive by the Federal Government should mean that more services be delivered online to the people of Nigeria and in a more efficient manner in line with the philosophy of SERVICOM.
He said the NCC is an important partner of SERVICOM in its journey towards service delivery and excellence, and recalled the passion and commitment of Prof. Danbatta-led management in ensuring that telecom service providers deliver optimal service to consumers in the country.
The Director said: “Therefore, from our perspective as regulator of the digital ecosystem in Nigeria, we feel that automation of service should be the next stage of service delivery while we have started this journey with the example of REMITA, which has brought about a lot of efficiency and transparency into the payment remittances by public and Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) of government.”
On the implementation of the NCC Charter for SERVICOM, Adinde said the NCC was privileged to have one of the best and brightest brains that could be found in the public sector as civil servants, who are ingrained with good work ethics and culture.
According to him, the commission’s staff are renowned for their warmth and geniality when dealing with internal and external stakeholders by working as a team on the principle of achieving Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound (SMART) objectives of the commission.
Adinde also listed the roles of the commission in collaborating with other MDAs in various ways, in order to achieve policy objectives of government in many fronts and also highlighted a number of corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects of the commission being implemented solely or jointly with other MDAs towards achieving the objective of government to serve the citizenry better.
As a further demonstration of the duty NCC owes telecoms consumers, whose interest must be protected in line with Nigerian Communications Act (NCA), 2003, the Director said the NCC created the Consumer Affairs Bureau in September 2001, to ensure consumer protection through policy development and monitoring, advocacy, as well as information and education of all shades of stakeholders.
He said: “Consequently, NCC is one of the few MDAs that have a dedicated toll-free number, designed specifically for the escalation of issues between telecommunications service providers and consumers. We also constantly monitor the Quality of Service (QoS), ensuring that service delivery issues are within the acceptable key performance indicators (KPIs).”
In her remarks, the National Coordinator/Chief Executive Officer of SERVICOM, Nnena Akajemili, commended NCC for contributing to the cultivation of effective communication between it and various stakeholders for improved service delivery.
Specifically, she noted the commitment of the NCC towards facilitating major activities, which had helped it in significantly improving the performance of its regulatory functions.
Akajemili cited the NCC’s contribution of 11.94 percent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Q3 this year as evidence that the commission is contributing to Nigeria’s sustainable development.
The SERVICOM boss advised the commission to continue to strengthen its collaboration with other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the area of data management, CSR, Value Added Services (VAS) and short codes, to enhance greater synergy among MDAs.
