NCC kicks against huge remittance by telecoms coys

BY OLABISI OLALEYE
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has decried the huge remittance by telecoms companies in Nigeria to overseas service providers, saying, it is an unhealthy development.
According to its Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Eugene Juwah, who stated this yesterday at a stakeholders’ forum in Lagos, increased activities witnessed in the telecoms sector over the last  decade in voice and data traffic led to the demand for associated contents and software requirement for services delivery.
He noted that software accounted for 40 percent of the total international remittances recorded in the nation’s Information Technology (IT) sector between 2010 and 2012.
Juwah,who stressed the need for a strategic plan to revitalise local contents and  skills for the growth of telecoms-related software in the country,listed international roaming, software purchases among areas being dominated by foreigner players.
The EVC ,who was represented by the NCC’s Director, Policy, Competition and Economic Analysis,  Mrs. Lolia Emapokre, disclosed that NCC is more worried over the impact of foreign direct investments (FDI) in the telecoms sector compared with the repatriation by operators from Nigeria.
This,according to him, explained why NCC came up with examinations of remittances across board.
CRS procedure in Nigeria was updated through similar fora in 2003 and 2009 in order to guide the industry on the payments for invisible trade transactions.
He stated that, since then, the industry has failed to realise the level of enormous paper work required to drive these telecoms remittances and payments to overseas vendors.
The NCC boss informed stakeholders that these remittances due for review include arithmetic accuracy check, price verification, documentation checks, international pricing database maintenance, vetting executed contract agreements among others.
“The commission is of the opinion that it is not enough to remit money to overseas service providers, the industry needs to develop local contents, IT software skills, and embrace the abundant capacity available at our sea shores through submarine cable services in order to create employment opportunities for our youths and foster economic growth in the country.”
Juwah also explained that the forum became necessary for the Commission to harmonise stakeholders ideas on how to address stringent conditions currently placed on hardware purchase by international vendors.
“We became aware of the stringent conditions the vendors attach to the purchase of hardware equipment by deliberately separating the associated operating and basic software components from the hardware equipment,” noting that “the overseas service providers feel that the operators have neither option nor a strategic plan to replicate local contents and IT software skills.”
source:the sun