The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) said it is capable of generating $1 billion with the introduction of 6G, a wireless communication technology standard that improves data delivery, bandwidth utilization, and application enablement.
Besides, NCC noted that despite the 50% telecom tariff hike, it may not be able to generate more revenues from spectrum sales this year.
NCC’s Director, Financial Services, Yakubu Gontor, and its Chief Executive Officer/Executive Vice Chairman, (CEO/EVC), Aminu Maida, made this known during the 2025 budget defence before the National Assembly Joint Committee on Communication on Thursday.
Gontor, who blamed the failure of telecommunications companies to buy 5G Spectrum licences as the major reason for its low revenue generation in 2024, explained that his outfit was unable to auction the 5G spectrum due to market conditions.
Shedding light on the issue, he said, “Two large operators already have 5G spectrum and they are actually underutilizing it. Now the third largest operator who were banking on to purchase this spectrum unfortunately indicated to us that perhaps this is not the right time to do it and they made it clear that their strategy was to expand their fortune.
“So we were operating on very fine margins. We had one slot to sell and there was only one potential buyer. Because as you know 9 Mobile is currently going through a restructuring of its fortunes.
“We have also made it clear to them (telcos) that the priority is to improve service this year. Now, spectrum is one of the resources required, but unfortunately, when you look at the priority of where they get to make investments, it’s not spectrum.
“When it comes to spectrum sales, it is a 10-year cycle for two reasons. Number one, the lease, just like when you lease a piece of land, you will be celebrating when they pay you a 10-year lease. But for the next nine years, it is that money from the 10 years that you will be relying on.”
On the 2025 budget, he said the NCC has a projected total revenue of N272.433 billion.
He said, “The major component of that revenue is an operating levy of N205.7 billion and spectrum fees of N49.784 billion and then other income. And our total recurrent expenditure projection is N95.668 billion naira and our total projected capital expenditure is N10.735 billion. While for special projects we have N30.13 billion projection.
“Total expenditure both recurrent, capital and special is projected at 136.534 billion. We project to remit to the CRF 120.836 billion while we project to remit to the Universal in 2025. Those are the highlights of our project projections for 2025.”
Shedding more light on the 2024 budget performance, the Chief Executive Officer/Executive Vice Chairman (CEO/EVC), of NCC informed that, the Commission generated N195.8 billion as revenue in 2024, out of which N111 billion was remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
According to him, N137.6 billion was earned from annual operating fees, while N26.4 billion was earned from Spectrum fees, among other revenue sources.
Maida informed the Committee that the Commission had targeted to earn N292.3 billion in the fiscal year but missed the target largely due to its inability to auction one slot of the 5G Spectrum.
He said, “That is also what impacted on the transfer to the Federal Government because a great proportion of spectrum fees is really limited to the CRF.
“But if you recall in the 2024 budget, we also made an assumption that we were going to get 12.5% cost of collections from the federal government. Unfortunately, that was not approved. So in reality, the operating income, I think it was around the 20-35% mark when you actually disposal to operate last year. So hence that’s why this year we had to revise and be more realistic.”
The Co-Chairman of the Committee, Senator Aliyu Ikrah Bilbis, assured that the Committee would strive to improve NCC operations this year.
