Business
By Benprince Ezeh
ISA Pantami, minister for communications and digital economy, has commended all the agencies in the communications and digital economy sector for their dedication to the implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, NDEPS 2020-2030.
Pantami stated this in his keynote address at a two-day retreat, organised by federal ministry of communications and digital economy, FMoCDE for senior management staff of the ministry and all its agencies between Thursday, March 31, and Friday, April 1, 2022, in Abuja.
The retreat was convened to evaluate the implementation of NDEPS in the context of what has been achieved, what needs to be achieved, and what processes should be emplaced to enhance the capacity of the ministry and agencies it superintends to mobilise all stakeholders to accomplish the objectives of NDEPS.
Citing the most recent report of the World Economic Forum, WEF, the minister said: “The synergy among the forum stakeholders in terms of co-operative posture, collaboration, coordination, deployment of social skills such as good listening skills, critical and analytical thinking, emotional intelligence, as well as project management and quality assurance skills, are central to organisational effectiveness, successes and the future of work, as projected by WEF,” the minister said.
Pantami then urged all the agencies and their staff to challenge themselves to do more rather than think of themselves as competitors.
Also speaking at the retreat, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, EVC/CEO, Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, asserted that the NCC has acted superlatively in implementing NDEPS and in the context of the vision of federal government and the supervision of the ministry.
Danbatta, who made a clearly methodical presentation that chronologically documented NCC accomplishments under each of the eight (8 pillars of NDEPS, cited 10 of the 16 regulations that have been instituted in giving expression to the government’s vision on developmental regulation, which is the first pillar of NDEPS.
“These regulations were focused on Enforcement Processes, Lawful Interception, Quality of Service, Competition Practices, Licensing Regulations, and Universal Access and Universal Service among others,” he said.
Danbatta promised to also complete the review of the remaining soonest and activate their implementation.
The EVC, who used a triangulation method in contextualising the achievement of the NCC under the first pillar, itemised the guidelines, regulations and policy development initiatives to discharge the burden of proof of NCC’s effectiveness in the regulation of ICT and digital economy sector through approaches that enabled development.
In implementing Digital Literacy and Skills, the second pillar, Danbatta said that the Digital Bridge Institute, DBI, set up by NCC in 2004, had trained 5,352 students through 49 institutions. “We have provided educational training software to 398 secondary schools, and endowed 7 professorial chairs in various Nigerian universities across all the geopolitical zones,” Dambatta said.
On solid Infrastructure, the third pillar of NDEPS, The EVC stated that broadband penetration as at December 2021 was 40.88 percent, thus enabling 80 million Nigerians to have access to broadband services.
“To reinforce the intensity of NCC’s commitment to improving broadband penetration, NCC has implemented a process for the deployment of optic fibre cable using Infrastructure Companies, Infracos.
“Licensed Infracos have been directed by the Commission to commence immediate roll out without recourse to counterpart funding because the licence issued to them is independent of the counterpart funding agreement.
“The Infracos are expected to lay 38,296km of fibre optic cable. Also, in keeping with government’s directive through a Federal Executive Council decision of 2005, NCC has constructed 32 Emergency Communication Centres, EECs in various states, and 32 of those have been activated and are operational,” Danbatta said.
Apr. 4 2022 @ 16:08 GMT |
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Tags: FMoCDE Isa Pantami NCC NDEPS Prof. Umar Danbatta WEF
