THE Nigerian Communications Commission sought N700 billion from the House of Representatives in order to connect 27 million Nigerians who lack access to telecommunications.
When the NCC’s executive vice chairman, Umar Garba Dambatta, and his team appeared before the House’s ad-hoc committee yesterday to discuss the commission’s use of the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) and its failure to provide telecommunications coverage, the committee rejected the request.
In addition, the committee, led by Bamidele Salam, wanted information about the N2 billion in projects funded by the USPF, including an e-library initiative run by the NCC.
The committee stated that 80% of the projects lacked a clear location, and that there was in many instances no detailed explanation of what was done in the contracts.
It instructed the NCC to deliver the precise addresses, project descriptions, and technical specifications of each contract awarded and listed in the 91-page document by 2 p.m. today.
Dambatta had earlier informed the committee that in 2013, the NCC conducted a research with the help of a consultant and found 207 clusters of access gaps affecting 37 million Nigerians.
“What we have done is to bring telecom services to people living in rural, unserved and underserved areas of this country, totaling 37 million people courtesy of the consultancy that was conducted in 2013.
“By 2019, we had succeeded in reducing the clusters of access gaps to a 114 through the deployment of the necessary infrastructure needed to bring services to people living in rural, unserved and underserved areas of the country. This deployment of infrastructure are the base transceiver stations,” he said.
The committee summoned the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, the Accountant-General of the Federation, the Auditor-General for the Federation and chief executive officers of telecommunication companies over the issue.
They are to appear before the committee tomorrow.
