Representative panel considers merger of NITDA, NCC, Nigcomsat and others

An ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives has launched a plan for a possible merger of the telecommunications and broadcasting regulatory entities.

The committee, chaired by Victor Danzaria (APC, Gombe) on Wednesday, met with the executive vice-chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Umar Danbatta, on the plan.

Nigerian Communications Satellite, Galaxy Backbone, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and NCC are some of the agencies being considered for merger.

Mr. Danzaria said research, revenue generation, and service delivery are key requirements in the review process for merging or dismantling government agencies.

He said it was not about having many agencies with so many managing directors who are not providing the required services to Nigerians, but about productivity.

"The ad hoc committee critically examines these agencies, their existence and investigates possible synergies and mergers of these agencies to provide effective service to Nigerians.

“One area is research, second is revenue generation and third is regulatory functions and service delivery and ultimately that is what Nigerians want.

"It's not about you going to an agency, you see this man sitting there on a table and there's no service there," he said.

The committee is also considering other MDAs for merger.

Discussing the possibility of a merger, Mr. Danbatta said that all the agencies perform different functions although there are areas of shared responsibilities.

He explained that in some climates, telecommunications and broadcasting regulations are unified. He added that to achieve such a merger, legislators must bring in experts to review existing laws and operational frameworks.

"NITDA regulates information technology, which is why it bears this name. Galaxy Backbone provides an infrastructure that promotes governance.

"In some countries we have what are called convergent regulators for telecommunications and the related sector. In this country we have two separate regulators, one for communication and one for broadcasting. It must have been the wisdom of the government to separate them,” he said.

Mr. Danbatta also spoke about the NCC's contribution to federal government coffers.

"We have records available to show that we contributed a lot to government coffers and a very good example is when we won that 5G auction.

"Auction proceeds go into government coffers. Normally we don't take anything. It says in the Gazette that whatever we sell—spectrum, we don't keep the money, we transfer normally that money to the government's consolidated revenue fund,” he said.

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