By Bankole Orimisan
THE Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has said that Nigerians would rather want the telecommunications operators in the country to improve on their services rather than seeing them sanctioned by the regulator.
ATCON President, Lanre Ajayi, who stated this in Lagos, on Monday, at the new broadband campaign forum organised by Ministry of Communications Technology and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), noted that it would be better if the challenges operators face were tackled adequately.
Ajayi, while commending the Ministry of Communications for reaching a truce with the Lagos State government on reduction in Right of Way fees in the state, reckoned that if such could be replicated by other states in the country, it will bring about infrastructure roll out that will boost services.
According to him, challenges including multiple taxation and regulation; vandalism; erratic power supply among others are still issues to contend with, “sanctions should not be over used. It should be the last option.”
The ATCON boss however, called on the operators to embrace co-location, saying co-location is a great success factor to achieving broadband penetration and improve telecommunications services.
Meanwhile, at the weekend, Ajayi, while speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), urged the House of Representatives to encourage the NCC to exercise its regulatory powers.
According to him, the regulatory body was made up of professionals who understood telecommunication laws.
It will be recalled that the House of Representatives recently mandated its Committee on Communications to review the pre-qualification criteria for companies, which is participating in the proposed auction of the 2.3GHz broadband spectrum by the NCC, which holds today and tomorrow in Abuja.
The House said that the 2.3 GHz broadband spectrum, which NCC valued at about N3.6 billion was a national communication asset, stressing that the criteria should have included that bidding companies be listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and subject to regulatory authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
However, Ajayi said that the Communications Act, which established the NCC as Nigeria’s telecom umpire, made the commission to enjoy some levels of autonomy.
“I am not sure the House has that kind of power. It has power to make the law but not power to interpret the law. The interpretation of the law is within the purview of the court. I have not seen any law that says you have to be on the Stock Exchange before you can be licensed to operate a telecom service,” Ajayi said.
According to him, it is not appropriate for people to interfere in the operations of the regulator, except where it is obvious that something wrong is being done.
NAN reports that the House of Representatives’ decision was fallout of a motion on the planned NCC auction moved by the Vice Chairman, House Committee on Capital Market, Chris Azubogu (APGA-Anambra). Azubogu said that most of the major players in the industry - MTN, Airtel, Etisalat – which indicated interest to participate in the auction, were privately held companies. He said that those telecommunication companies were not publicly listed companies.
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