The House of Representatives has queried the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) over one thousand and fourteen projects under the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) inducing an e-library project that was carried out to the tune of over two billion naira.
This was disclosed at the House Ad-hoc Committee investigating the failure and inability of the Commission to promote widespread availability of mobile telecommunication network service throughout Nigeria as well as accruals and utilization of funds in the USFP, during its inaugural hearing, in Abuja.
The House also frowned at a request by the commission for seven hundred billion naira to ensure that twenty-seven million Nigerians who are not currently covered by telecommunication.
While declaring the forum open, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila described the telecommunication sector in Nigeria as the largest sector.
The Speaker who was represented by Nkiru Onyejiocha urged the NCC to always provide effective and efficient services at all times across all nooks and crannies of Nigeria.
In his welcome address, the Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Bamidele Salam said that the Investigative hearing was sequel to a motion of Urgent National Importance moved during one of the plenaries by a fellow Lawmaker on the Need to Investigate Failure/Inability of the Nigerian Communication Commission, NCC to promote widespread availability and Usage of Mobile Telecommunication Network Services to the Underserved and Unserved Areas of Nigeria by the Nigerian Communications Commission.
He noted that the committee had invited different major stakeholders for their impute that will help the committee in its reports and recommendations.
“There is a list of contracts awarded by the USPF since inception provided for us here, which is about 1014 various contracts on which a few observations have been made. There is also the submission of the annual audited report of the USPF which has been from 2007 till date, but a few years missing from the audited reports. A few observations have been raised out of that and I want members to let us address those issues so they can take the answers holistically.” Salam said,
The Chairman equally promised that the committee would probe beyond the surface and unravel all issues relating to network failure and non-accessibility in the country.
The mover of the motion, Sergius Ose Ogun noted that by the provisions Section 4 of the Nigerian Communications Act, Cap. N97, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, the NCC is saddled with the responsibility of facilitating investments in and entry into the Nigerian market for the provision and supply of communication services, equipment and facilities.
A member, Mark Gbillah said, “The challenge is the NCC has given itself the power to annually decide what it is going to annually allocate to USPF. Looking at the documents presented, administrative expenses rose from N19 million to N127 million. The expenditure on staff rose exponentially. Let me say that it is important for the NCC to let us know the premise on which you annually determine allocate the USPF or otherwise and what annual allocation they have proposed and implemented from inception till date.
“We need to know what the funds have been used for. For instance the e library alone you spent over 2 billion on e-library. How functional is the library based on the amount that have been allocated to them when a lot more should have been allocated in my opinion to the deployment of Base Transceiver Stations to have more coverage across the country.” Gbillah said.
The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta noted that 80 percent of the projects had no specific location.
Prof Danbatta said that in 2013 there was a consultancy driven by the NCC to identify clusters of access gaps in the country.
He said 207 clusters of access gaps according to that study and in these clusters of access gaps, there were about 37 million Nigerians adding that since then through the Commission’s efforts the number of people without access had been reduced to 27 million.
“What we have done to bring telecom services to people living in rural, unserved and underserved areas of this country, totalling 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. I am going to give information about the base transceiver stations we have so far. This resulted in the reduction of Nigerians in those clusters from 37 million to 31 million in 2019. By 2022 we had reduced the clusters of access gaps to 97 from 207 in 2013.The number of Nigerians again have come down from 37 million in 2013 to 27 million as we speak. How did we achieve this? We achieved this by deploying from 2009 to 2011 a total of 79 base transceiver stations. In 2013 to 2018, we deployed an additional 124 base transceiver stations. From 2019 to 2022 we deployed a total of 364 base transceiver stations. The total number of base transceiver stations we have deployed to date is 567 as we speak. This is a landmark. But when you look at the gap. The 97 clusters of access gaps with a total population of 27 million Nigerians still without access as we speak. This is also not desirable. It is not something that we can allow to continue. That is why in our presentation we have indicated additional things we have done to be able to bridge these gaps. And giving an analysis of the amount of money that would be required to completely bridge the 97 clusters of access gaps in the country.
Arising from the deterioration of the exchange rate of the naira to the dollar, we have a figure of approximately N700 billion. It is the total amount required to completely bridge the gaps within the clusters that I have stated earlier. This is not a tall order. It can be done”. Prof Dambata said.
He noted one way to ensure adequate coverage was to declare a state of emergency that would lead to the bridging of all these clusters of access gaps in the country.
PIAK
