The executive chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Prof. Umar Dambatta has said the total revenues generated from the auction of the 5G spectrum has now hit over $500 million.
The NCC boss disclosed this in Abuja during an investigative hearing session held in front of the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee.
According to him, the revenues generated from the 5G auction, which MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications Limited won, have already been remitted to the government.
He also unveiled plans for the deployment of technology to verify annual operating levies (AOL), tax, and other payments by network service providers to the Federal Government.
In his words, “We are currently going to deploy a technology solution. We call it Revenue Assurance Solution (RAS).
“We have finished signing the MOU with the Consultant that is going to do this deployment so that we can independently verify that the amount of annual operating levy (AOL) they are paying and other taxes are indeed what they are supposed to pay and, therefore, not shortchange the NCC or government when it comes to payment of taxes.
“We, through what we call annual operating levy, run our operations, pay our staff salaries and allowances and even provide resources for intervention in the diverse areas of information and communication technology in the various parts of the country.
“These interventions are verifiable. There is no state of the federation that we don’t provide interventions in the diverse areas of ICT. We also provide training. We would like to ensure our citizens are ICT savvy by embracing this important technology because that is what the whole is doing.
“That is what we can do to ensure our citizens are socially and economically transformed to change the way they are doing things, the way they collaborate and innovate.
“We have records available to show that we have been contributing a lot to the coffers of the government and a very good example is when we did that successful 5G auction. The proceeds from the auction go to the coffers of the government.
“We don’t normally take anything. It is gazetted that whatever we sell spectrum, we do not keep the money; we normally transfer this money to the consolidated revenue fund of the government.”
It should be recalled that on September 20, 2022, Investors King reported that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) projected N500 Billion in revenue from the 5G spectrums license for the 2023 financial year.
