NCC Provided N362.3Bn of the N31.86Tn Telecoms Contribution to Nigeria’s GDP in the Last 5 Years

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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that it remitted a total of N362.34 billion into the Federal Government Consolidated Revenue Fund over the last 5 years.

The revenue generated was disclosed by the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, yesterday in Abuja. According to him, the revenue was realised through spectrum fees and operating surplus accumulated over the years.

The Consolidated Revenue Fund is an account that is owned and managed by the Federal Government, where all its revenues are paid

NCC Contributed N362.3Bn of the Over N31.86Tn Telcoms Added to Nigeria's GDP in the last 5 years
Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC

NCC contribution to Nigeria’s GDP

The revenue generated by the NCC is part of the total contribution of the telecoms sector to the countries GDP. According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), telecoms contributed over N31.86 trillion to the real GDP between 2015 and 2019.

This means that N362.34 contributed by the NCC to the N31.86 trillion generated by the telecoms sector since 2015. This represents about 1.13% of the total real GDP contribution of telecoms during the period.

The breakdown of telecoms addition to the GDP over the years shows a general growth as the contribution rose from N5.93tn to 6.05tn between 2015 and 2016, and also from N6.6tn to 7.35 between 2018 and 2019.

However, there was a slight dip in 2017 as contribution dropped from N6.05tn in 2016 to N5.93tn. recently, the ICT sector contributed 14.2 per cent to the GDP in the second quarter of 2020.

NCC Contributed N362.3Bn of the Over N31.86Tn Telcoms Added to Nigeria's GDP in the last 5 years

Over N20 billion revenue lost

Compared to NCC, several other agencies have failed to generate revenue for the government. In 2017, the Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF) revealed that 16 revenue-generating agencies failed to remit a total of N19.02 billion to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).

The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) topped the list of unremitted revenue, with N7,585,116,400.

Similarly, the director of government-owned pay Tv, Startimes, recently revealed that no revenue was added to the country’s account from the venture.

Other achievements

Apart from the revenue generated, Danbatta revealed that in the last five years the agency has been able to increase broadband penetration from 6 per cent to 42 per cent as of July 2020.

According to him, the achievement was possible due to the policy initiatives of the agency.

”This achievement is as a result of key policy initiatives to improve broadband penetration embarked upon by the Commission. These include increasing the number of licenced infrastructure companies (InfraCo), to six across the geo-political zones,’’

Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC

He added that the commission is currently finalising six InfraCo counterpart funding agreements to ensure the full rollout of broadband infrastructure on an Open Access Model.

He explained that the rollout will “ensure there was Point of Access in all the 774 local government areas in the country. ”

NCC Contributed N362.3Bn of the Over N31.86Tn Telcoms Added to Nigeria's GDP in the last 5 years

The next five years

Speaking on future plans of the agency, the NCC boss revealed that the plan is to take broadband penetration to 70% by 2025.

“I hoped to deepen the broadband penetration drive. We hope to take the broadband penetration to 70 per cent to at least 90 per cent of the population by 2025 in line with the new target in the National Broadband Plan (NBBP), 2020-2025.”

Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC

He also disclosed that the agency intends to continue to help Nigerians get value for their money as well as fast-tract the digital economic drive of the government.


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