General News
By Christabel Ejenike
THE Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, says that he is committed to contributing to the success of the West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly, WATRA.
Speaking when he received the new executives of WATRA, led by its new Chairman, Sekou Oumar Barry of the Republic of Guinea, who called on him on Thursday, Danbatta said: “In my capacity as the immediate past Chairman of WATRA, I promise my commitment to always share ideas with the new leadership of WATRA towards consolidating the successes so far recorded by WATRA under my leadership.
“I will give advice that will make you succeed as a friend and not the one that will undermine your authority.”
He congratulated his successor at the WATRA. “I would like to congratulate my dear brother, Sekou Oumar Barry, on your emergence as the new WATRA chairman and to express, in very clear terms, our commitment as NCC and in my capacity as immediate past Chairman of WATRA to support your leadership to succeed in consolidating on existing achievements of the Assembly towards taking WATRA to a greater height,” he said.
According to Danbatta, the past one year of his tenure as former chair of WATRA has been eventful with a lot measures put in place towards deploying the power of Information and Communications Technology, ICT, for advancing socio economic development of the sub-region.
Danbatta acknowledged the important role WATRA has been playing in creating policy, legal and regulatory frameworks in the sub-region since the mid-1990s and commended the synergy among member states that has resulted in significant growth to the ICT ecosystem.
He also tasked the WATRA executives to put in their all in order to achieve the mandates, vision and missions of the assembly. “If we work together as a team, I believe we would make a lot of difference in a manner that will result in the socio-economic transformation of our sub-region in order to improve the standard of living of our people as we have seen this done successfully in many countries. So, we can repeat the same feat here in Africa,” he said.
Responding, Sekou Oumar Barry thanked his predecessor for making giant strides during his tenure as Chairman of WATRA and assured him of his readiness to work for the Assembly.
He pointed out his focus key areas of priority which include ensuring that the SMP is finalized and becomes operational, ensuring that member fees contribution is revised upward so that WATRA will have adequate resources to run its operation, build its permanent structure and ensuring that the regional roaming policy for the sub-region becomes a reality.
“We want to ensure that the plan you started is not going to stop. We understand that the time left for us is short. We know we cannot do everything and that is why we are going to be focusing on the four key priority areas as itemised above so that at the end of the tenure we can say we have succeeded on those priorities,” he said.
– Jun. 4 2022 @ 17:55 GMT | C.E
Tags: NCC Nigerian Communications Commission Prof. Umar Danbatta Sekou Oumar Barry WATRA West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly
