The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called on
the Senate to discontinue any consideration on the proposed bill on the
Nigerian Communications Satellite, (NIGCOMSAT).
Giving reasons
for its appeal, NCC said the bill, if passed, would run contrary to existing
telecommunications laws, and would be inimical to the stability of the sector.
Executive
Commissioner, Stakeholder Management of NCC, Mr. Okechukwu Itanyi, made the
submission to the joint public hearing by the Senate Committee on
Communications and Science and Technology, with a strong opposition to the
bill.
"The
commission opposes in its entirety, the passage of the bill by the National
Assembly. The bill serves to add nothing positive to the current state of the
industry but will destabilise and distort the achievements which the industry
has recorded in terms of regulatory certainty, investor encouragement and
healthy competition", he said.
In line with
the clammour by the Ministry of Communication Technology and other
stakeholders, Itanyi said a privatised NIGCOMSAT could seek any licence it
wishes to operate to provide whatever service it intends to provide from the
regulator and that currently, the company is a licensee of the NCC, wondering
what difference the bill will deliver to the company.
The bill which
is already interpreted as a bad omen for the telecommunications industry, and
is tantamount to the National Assembly issuing telecomms licences to government
agencies, against the provisions of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, is
also opposed by the Communications Technology Ministry, which supervises
NIGCOMSAT, as well as the Ministry of Science and Technology, Itanyi said in a
statement.
He submitted that
the bill is contradictory to 2003 Act from same National Assembly, and
indicated that the provision on it for NIGCOMSAT to manage and operate
frequency bands as well as designing and operation of communications satellite
with respect to telephony, television, radio, broadcasting, broadband internet
services, navigation, global positioning system or any other activities or
facilities of like nature, together with the transmitters, teleports,
transponders, earth stations, terminal, antenna and frequency band, is an
overwhelming contradiction.