EVC NCC, Maida set to rejig telecom industry via strategic regulatory blueprints

 

The Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida has commenced his process of reaching out and engaging key stakeholders following his appointment as the helmsman of the nation’s telecom regulatory body, to acquainted them on how he will rejig the telecom industry through strategic regulatory blueprints.

Accordingly, the EVC NCC, Maida, held an interactive meeting with top Media Executives in Lagos on Thursday where he unveiled the strategic regulatory blueprints.

Maida informed the media executives that he used the last three months for observation, fact findings, and engaging key stakeholders, adding that he was committed to driving a good total customer experience for telecoms consumers in the country.

He hinted that the commission would also work with the blueprint of the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, which was unveiled by the Minister, Bosun Tijani, to ensure that the sector contributes more to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) economy, create jobs, accrue more revenue to the government and solicited for the support of the media to accomplish that feat.

He pointed out that under his leadership, the Commission will operate on four major drivers such as collaboration, Data centric administration, compliance and monitoring and digitization, while working with stakeholders which include the operators, government and consumers.

In the EVC words: “The four areas we see as drivers include collaboration. In the spirit of working with our stakeholders that ranges from government agencies, the media, operators to the consumers, collaboration is very vital for us.

“Another is being data centric: We are living in a digital age and as a regulator of the telecoms infrastructure, we are going to be making decisions that are well informed.

“Everything we do will be data driven. We will be driving the collection of a lot of data from our stakeholders and also the data to project the work that we are doing so that we can have a high level of transparency because what you don’t measure and hold people accountable to, you cannot drive efficiency and performance.

“Also, compliance is another driver, of course as a regulator and empowered by the NCA 2003, we have the power to hold our licensees to their obligations. We have laid down obligations for our licensees to meet, we will help them to meet those obligations.

“Digitalization is another driver. And this requires more work on the part of the regulator, so we will be deploying digitalization, to enable us work efficiently. For instance, renewing of licenses can be done digitally.”

Maida explained that the consumers are the major stakeholders that the NCC would be addressing their needs and promised to end the era of telecom subscribers carrying multiple phones or having multiple SIM cards by ensuring that the Commission carries out advocacy for the subscribers to make the right choices; ensuring good quality of service; leveraging on data to make sure subscribers use one SIM to achieve the needed quality as well as drive transparency around tariffs, so that subscribers will get maximum satisfaction for their money.

“We will be focusing on the needs of each of these stakeholders. For instance, we know consumers are looking for total Quality of Experience, QoE. We will be driving QoE, right from the point of how they find and select telecoms services.

“We will be leveraging data to be able to empower consumers to be able to make the right choice, so that we can move away from the world where we have multiple SIM devices.

“Rather than multiple devices and SIM Cards, we are looking at a situation, where consumers will only have one SIM card and one device.

“We are also going to be working with our licensees on data tariff, speed and coverage. We are going to be working with our licensees to see how tariffs can be simpler and more transparent,” he said.

The NCC boss noted that it has become imperative to reposition the sector, to make sure that telecommunications sector licensees will be held more accountable for all their deeds in the sector as well as honour all operators’ agreements.

He disclosed that the Commission is also working on reviewing the standard of operations for the telecom operators to enhance corporate governance and international best practices from the operators.

He stated further that the Commission would also be doing more advocacy with respect to compliance, warning that “We are also going to be focusing on issues that have escalated. We are going to be stepping in, as a regulator, to see what are the common issues that consumers are complaining about, what are the regulators doing about them, so that we can really hold everybody in the value chain accountable.

According to him, instead of entertaining fears of regulatory compromise or capture of the independence of the commission, he will dwell more on the provisions of the 2003 Act, which laid down perfect guidelines on how to evolve a desirable regulatory environment.

He also highlighted that the Commission would be looking at general security as communication provides the backbone for all the industries and within digital economy space the NCC plays a very huge role,

“We are also going to see how we can improve the general security, integrity from the consumers’ perspective. We want to create a platform where consumers can verify if their lines that they have not used for a long time are still active or not. We have noticed that vicious people are targeting lines that are dormant for a long time, to carry out fraud.

“We want to formulate a policy to ensure that any line used to carry out fraud, the owner of that line will be prosecuted. So, if you are not using a particular line, it is advisable you block it,” he emphasized.

Earlier in his welcome address, the Director of Public Affairs of NCC, Reuben Muoka, said the new EVC, Dr. Aminu Maida appreciates the support, impact and benefits of the media in institutional communications, as according to him, the media platforms and resources can provide the dependency upon which to regulate the industry in its diverse audiences for the purpose of achieving enviable heights.

He affirmed that the EVC is desirous of achieving results, working transparently and effectively in regulating the industry and will continue to count on the support and advocacy of the media to accomplish this feat.