15 May 2008
Lagos — Nigeria Communications Comission (NCC) has assured that it will not revoke license of any GSM operator for any offence.
Chief Executive Officer, NCC, Mr Ernest Ndukwe gave the assurance yesterday in Cairo, Egypt while speaking with correspondents of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the 2008 International Telecoms Union (ITU) conference."
Invalidating somebody's license is like committing murder. I think the first person to complain will be the subscribers," Ndukwe said.
He said invalidation should be the last resort for the regulatory authority inorder to reduce the impact it will have on subscribers.
Ndukwe said unless an operator refused to continue giving out services or was becoming insolvent, the NCC would not contemplate revoking its license. He said that the commissionhad no reason to take such measure because the operators had not committed serious offences. He said the commission hadwon many awards for being law abiding in its regulatory role."
We won the awards largelybecause we believe in the rule of law..we believe in people knowing with certainty what we are likely to do; and we also believe in people challenging our actions if they don't like what we are doing." If you become very dictatorial, you will have problems. The operating companies have gone to court, but they failed in the courts because the judiciary in Nigeria is very good and strong.
And now they (companies) are complying," Ndukwe said. He said that Nigeria was the fastest growing ICT country in the world having overtaken South Africa in its subscriber base.
On rural telephony, he said that although most rural communities were already on the communication network, the Commission would not relent in its effort to ensure that rural communities benefited from modern communication technology. He said already a Universal Service Provision Fund had been put in place to ensure the success of the rural telephony project.'That fund is supposed to help extend services to therural and under servedareas and a lot is beingdone this year."
But the commitment is that all parts of Nigeria would be connected in due course," he said. On his impression of theconference, Ndukwe said itwas important for Nigeria,as apart from Egypt,Nigeria was the only Africacountry that put up a bigshow with seven companiesand a pavilion with the NCCparticipating.
He said the conference washolding at a historicperiod when the 280 millionsubscriber base for boththe mobile and fixed linesin Africa had overtakenthose of North andSouth America. Ndukwe said Nigeria would benefit from the exchangeof ideas and the newtechnologies in the mobile,wireless and the Internetareas.
NAN reports that at thesecond forum for experts yesterday, Ndukwe canvassed for an open access to the ICT market as it was critical for the development of the rural areas in developing countries.
He called for collaborationamong the operators as itwas necessary that all newICT infrastructureshould be made available toall stakeholders in thesector.
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