billyG:

THE headline is misplaced,it is not Buhari's committee it is Federal government committe,they shld b recommended to efcc for prosecution.

Who is heading the federal government?

The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said it intervened with an interim price floor for data services to avert a looming price war in the telecommunications sector.
But the Communications Minister Adebayo Shittu has asked Nigerians to brace for a price rise.
The regulatory commission said it feared that the price war could eventually lead to a monopoly in the telecom industry that would force small operators to shut down.
It said that monopoly in the telecom sector could also push the country back to the days of NITEL – the troubled governenmt-owned telco – to the detriment of small operators.
NCC Executive Vice Chairman Prof. Umar Dambatta stated this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Communications.
The committee was mandated to investigate the proposed data tariff hike said to have been ordered by the NCC.
Committee Vice Chairman Senator Solomon Adeola, who presided, noted that there was a public outcry over the proposed increase.
Sen. Adeola said Nigerians were united in their opposition to the proposed increase.
He said the position of Nigerians was that a tariff hike was ill- advised, especially with the biting economic situation.
Dambatta told the committee that the NCC’s intervention was not designed to undermine consumers.
He noted that if cheap prices were introduced, they may end up undermining the telecom service operators.
He said if the situation arose where the operators could no longer cope, the consequences could be better imagined.
Dambatta said the need to avert a crisis in the industry informed the decision to introduce interim price floor for data services at N0.90k per BM.
He said: “We wanted to protect the Nigerian consumer from unhealthy price war in what may lead to a monopoly that may lead us to the days of NITEL. We did not increase any price but merely provided a regulatory standard to protect small telecom operators.”
Dambatta said there were some telecom operators that lacked the capacity to compete with the big operators.
He said the N0.90k price floor for purchase of data was a benchmark below which no operator could sell.
“We said in the interim directive measure that no operator should sell below 90k per megabite. There was a price war in the market; that was why we issued the interim directive.
“A situation where a dominant operator provides services far below what is obtainable in the sector in order to attract more customers may lead to a situation where smaller operators will be forced to shut down,” he said.
Dambatta, who said there was a mix up of the interim directive, noted that instead of increase, the NCC wanted reduction in price of tariff to create a balance between big and small operators.
He said the NCC did not set any price ceiling but provided a price law.
Dambatta added, “ We stepped in when we noticed a price war in the sector. The price war was already reaching undesirable level that we had to step in to prevent a monopoly like the days of NITEL.”
The interim floor price, he said, has been suspended temporarily to allow for further consultations.
Dambatta said the NCC would conduct extensive research to come up with a price floor that would be acceptable to Nigerians.
The Minister said the reality was that telecom service providers are operating in an unfriendly business environment, including lack of electricity and increasing security challenges.
He said: “This is one area that I believe that we all must face the reality… If you look at the NCC law, it is positioned to reflect experiences, expertise and all of that and I want to believe that there must not be too many interventions in the activities of the NCC.
“I am a political office holder. I am not an expert, so I cannot venture to say whether they did wrong or right, except they say that the constitution has granted them the role of a supervisor of a direct regulatory authorities, particularly relating to the activities in the telecoms industry.
“The only area I feel they were deficient was in the area of communicating with the people of this country, particularly because of the sensitivity that has been imposed on Nigerians by the harsh economic situation.
“I know that if you want to make omelet you must break eggs. Unfortunately in this country, we fail to appreciate the transformation role that ICT has brought about in the lives of Nigerians.
“I keep saying this, and I have no apology in saying this, before 1999, GSM lines in Nigeria were less than 500,000. Today, we have well over N152 million lines. All the hustles that Nigerians were going through before the exponential development of ICT are no more with us.
“It is also important to say that operators in Nigeria are operating on a very harsh situation, which is not known in other advanced countries. For instance, over the years, the Nigerian state has not succeeded in fixing electricity over the last 20 years.
“This industry’s reliance on electricity and because Nigeria has failed in providing reliable electricity, it means they have to rely on extra budgetary provisions to provide electricity 24 hours, seven days of the week, which additional expenditure does not operate in other countries which we seek to copy. This is one challenge that we must look at.
“The other challenges in the area of security; a lot of infrastructure by operators are usually under coma by criminals all across the country. Indeed we know what the security situation is in the country. Apart from that we also have the problem of taxes which they have always be talking about. I have always challenged operators that I want to see all the taxes so that we find a way of harmonising them.
“What I am saying is this, if Nigeria has invited international investors to come and invest in Nigeria so that our lives will be better, so that the economy will be better, so that businesses can be more conveniently made, so that even government can run more conveniently, to whom much is given, much is expected.
“The Nigerian state must also be in a position to provide its own share to make an enabling environment operate properly.
“So, I am not supporting at this stage or not supporting the price increase with regards to the floor. But what I am saying is, these are technical issues whose decision must be taken having regard to all the factors that are important before a decision can be taken.
“I am appealing to the distinguished senate in intervening, they should try to encourage NCC to be the best that it can, they should try to assist us (NCC) in the area of holding the balance between the interest of operators and the interest of the Nigerian masses so that we can be seen to be providing the best.”
MTN CEO Mr. Ferdinand Moolman, who was also at the hearing, said that the industry had been operating without data floor since 2015.
He underscored MTN’s commitment to ICT development in the country.
The MTN boss also stressed the need for a long time overview of the industry.
He was emphatic that the industry needed to be health to continue to grow.
Moolman said: “MTN remains unrelentingly committed to the sustained provision of affordable and accessible voice and data services in accordance with the National ICT and Broadband plan. In line with this commitment and to continue the provision of high speed data services to its esteemed customers, MTN recently bid for, and acquired the 2.6GHz LTE spectrum at the cost of US$96million.MTN also launched 4G LTE services, enabling faster access to digital platforms and igniting socio-economic development with a multiplier effect on the economy.

http://thenationonlineng.net/minister-advises-nigerians-brace-telecom-data-price-increase

It seems this government is looking for every possible way to punish Nigerians. We are still feeling the effects of the abuse of power by the police, army and civil defence, then comes another obstacle with gun wielding civil defense.
One has to ask why there is still rise in crime and accidents with these several government agencies.

The overhyped 6 trillion didn't make any impact too. This government is appearing clueless and moronic as the day goes.

The question we should be asking ourselves is what the 5.8 trillion naira spent on as the public is yet to feel any positive impact of the expenditures.
It makes no sense that we are spending this high amount with nothing to show for it.

Silly excuse, are you protecting companies or the consumer? Since the big companies and consumers didn't complain, there is no need of increaesing data cost.
I suspect that the NCC chairman has been bribed by one company, hence the anti-people move.

mrvitalis:


If u eat Turkey every day then u lose ur job and start to eat fish that's 1000 less the price can't u say by eating fish u are saving 1000?? Which means u have saved ur self 365k u would have spent

Not necessarily, I am saying this because the 365k doesn't exist anymore and even if I wanted to foolishly continue eating turkey, I can't do that anymore.
In summary, what I am pointing out is that there is no savings as the supposed funds aren't in existence, I only managed to survive by eating what I can afford.

mrvitalis:

Lol
They don't have the money number one
Two they can't channel money they don't have to other places



Oh my ur IQ is supper low

You aren't making any sense, how can one save what he doesn't have?

989900D:


"To each his own", at the least, it is less of share the money now.

It is so due to less income to steal and not necessarily a reduction in corrupt practices. You should ask yourself why our budget implementation of 6 trillion (which is 60 percent implemented according to Mr Udoma) is still yet to felt by the general population after several months.

989900D:
If the figures flying around are anything close to the truth, then I must say:

Buhari's administration is clearly trying so hard to burn whatever is remaining of the trust the people have in it; aggressively advertising for a massive revolt and utter rejection with all these ill-thought-out stupidities . . . increase in everything, without a dime increase in wages?

ATEOTD, Buhari and his entourage are probably somewhere forgetting they are NOTHING without 'we the people', we revolted against 'almighty PDP' and left it in tatters, we will do it again.

You got played son, there is nothing like "almighty" PDP or APC by the way, the corrupt politicians only changed party from PDP to APC, no ideology was changed; things are still the way it is.
We will only get it right when the right set of people new to Nigerian politics are put in charge and not by recycling corrupt politicians and be fooling ourselves in the name of change.

Keep believing in crap while other African countries progress. Nigeria has one of lowest Human Development Index (HDI) in Africa and this is the index most appropriate to judge development and not some crappy GDP.

Will our pedophilic legislooters allow this campaign to thrive.

The sponsors may have probably actualized their aims.

We had a budget of over 6 trillion naira but citizens are yet to feel its impact. Taxation is good no doubt, but the most important service to Nigerians is transperency and full budget implementation.

This man is a funny character.

Mr. Governor, there are better ways of managing the situation than killing them thereby making a bad situation even worse. From what has been learnt in history, violence doesn't solve problems.

Nigeria's future isn't bright at all, from all indications, it seems the youths exhibit more hate and bigotry than their failed ancestors going by comments on nairaland on the daily.
Believing that Nigeria will progress under this mindset is plain buffoonery and pratfall comedy.

Must we always suffer before the government gets it right?

So what is the essence of the summit if all the Arab countries walked out? Buhari should stop wasting our resources in attending futile meetings.

I am quite astonished that people believe this balderash.

Tinubu is being pummeled from all direction.

Lienus Mohammed, as you make your bed, so shall you lie on it. Stop complaining when you were the chief propagandaist of fake news during your time as APC spokesperson.

I can vividly remember you claiming on twitter that GEJ was planning to kidnap Jega to stop him from announcing results when nothing of such ever happened.

A__o__a
Fill in the missing space.

Dry season is here and it is expected that boko haram attacks will increase, as there will be better movement of these terrorists.
It is quite sad that the present administration made it seem as if there were defeated.

How Buhari is fighting corruption.

->The summary being that lack of functional weapons is the major cause of our downfall, coupled with moles in the military.
->The solution being that military needs serious intelligence to be able to fish out saboteurs and the FG needs to do its job by making sure our defence budget is managed how it was planned by creating financial transparency in the military.

alezzy13:


What most folks find unpardonably distasteful about your ilk is the sheer hypocrisy and stupefying clannish inclinations.

You adulate GEJ for being the best thing to have happened to the region since the discovery of colour television, and on the same breath, bemoan the neglect of the region by FG. Irony.

Some would even - incredulous as it seems - blame PMB for the neglect, willfully ignoring the fact that the dearly beloved benefactor rode the saddle for the better part of 5 years and oversaw unprecedented inflow of revenue. Yet no single tangible project in the region. (DO NOT MENTION ENUGU AIRPORT!!!!!)

Just for the records, I do not support any region being denied Fg presence because their political affiliation. It is wrong.but you guys should stop this your clannish habit. it is irritating.

Dude, I dont give two f*cks about GEJ, Buhari or any Nigerian politician. I am just digusted with people who use not voting a certain candidate as a justification for clear neglect and marginalization when our constitution gives us the freedom of choice.
I think GEJ was a total failure and Buhari isnt doing any better if he keeps alienating the SE.

I dont get why some folks who claim to be sophisticated always bring up the argument "why didnt you vote for Buhari". Every Nigerian has a right to choose and should not be blackmailed by threats of marginalization for not voting your preferred candidate. We are backward as a nation because we tend to play bitter politics, I cant imagine if Obama did the same by treating those that didnt vote for him badly.

lol

So he didnt know that releasing Boko Haram terrorists will come to bite back? We are definitely being ruled by psychos.