NCC seeks partnership with FCT Minister on smart city

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is seeking a partnership deal with the Minister of Federal Capital territory, Mohammed Musa Bello on the concept of smart city.

The deal will transform Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, into a more robust telecommunications and ICT infrastructure template that will ultimately lead to better security, better environment and control, including transportation infrastructure,which would be integrated to provide smart solutions for the city residents.

Executive Vice Chairman, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, who led a team of the Commission to pay a courtesy visit to the FCT Minister in Abuja, gave this indication.

Danbatta said, “The Commission is part of the ongoing discussions about how to implement smart cities in Abuja and other parts of the country. When this is done, the FCT will, no distant future, belong to a class of cities, where the futuristic Internet of Things is already becoming a reality.”

He acknowledged that given the status of the FCT today, it ought to be the city with the best telecommunications’ connectivity, but the reverse is the case.

He said that the Federal Capital Territory appears to have some of the most challenging issues with quality of service when compared with other cities across the country as a result of some unresolved challenges.

The challenges, according to him, include, Collocation of Telecommunication Base Stations in the FCT, where operators are willing to collocate but we are yet to receive collocation guidelines from the FCT.

Others are the 2006 fee regime of the FCTA, where it was agreed in a meeting between operators, FCTA and NCC in 2006 that the FCTA and NCC would meet and harmonize positions on the astronomical increase in fees for building permits imposed by FCTA.

This has not been done; and operators have continued to receive bills from the administration based on the 2006 rates.

Danbatta also highlighted the issue of retrospective FCTA laws that affect telecom facilities, arguing that any law or policy by the FCTA that affect telecom facilities should not be made retroactive.

Other impediments, he listed, included activities of road construction companies in the FCT, delayed approval for installation of base stations/fibre deployments and implementation of National Economic Council Resolution on Multiple Taxation, Levies and Charges on ICT Infrastructure in Nigeria.

The telecommunications’ industry regulator, also revealed that the telecommunications’ sector contributed N1.6 trillion to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter of the year, and had been contributing about 10 per cent to the country’s GDP annually.