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Friday, March 29, 2024

Indigenous Content Development in Nigerian Telecom sector set to fly – Danbatta

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…….calls on all its stakeholders to come on board to achieve maximum success

Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that Indigenous Content Development in the Nigerian Telecom sector was set to fly and called on all its stakeholders to come on board to achieve maximum success.

Danbatta made the call while delivering a keynote address titled: “ESTABLISHING RULES AND LAWS FOR THE EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF LOCAL CONTENT PROMOTION POLICY IN THE NATIONAL TELECOMS SECTOR” at the maiden edition of virtual Policy Implementation Forum (PIAFo-001) on Thursday.

The NCC boss while giving updates on Indigenous Content Valorization in the Nigerian Telecom Industry disclosed that the Federal Government recently reinforced the local content agenda by putting in place Executive Order 003 of 2017 and Executive Order 005 of 2018 titled Support for Local Content in Public Procurement by the Federal Government and Development of Local Content in Science, Engineering and Technology respectively.

“The Federal Government recently reinforced the local content agenda by putting in place Executive Order 003 of 2017 and Executive Order 005 of 2018 titled Support for Local Content in Public Procurement by the Federal Government and Development of Local Content in Science, Engineering and Technology respectively. The Commission instituted several measures and strategies towards ensuring compliance by the industry to the aforementioned Executive Orders, these include building local capacity through various initiatives and innovations which are aimed at encouraging digital skills and entrepreneurship as well as building local infrastructure.”

He also noted that the Commission has designed a roadmap for the implementation of the policy in line with President Buhari-led government agenda.

“As required by the Policy, the Commission has established the Nigeria Office for Developing the Indigenous Telecoms Sector (NODITS). This Office is saddled with the responsibility of implementation of the NPPIC as well as the Executive Orders 003 and 005. Relevant portions of the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP) 2020-2025 as well as the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) are also under the purview of this new office called NODITS.

“Indigenous Content Development in the Nigerian Telecom sector is set to fly, and the Commission calls on all its stakeholders to come on board to achieve maximum success,” Danbatta declared.

In his welcome address, Mr Omobayo Azeez, Chairman, Organising Committee of Policy Implementation Assisted Forum (PIAFo) said, “Today’s virtual gathering focuses on the National Policy for the Promotion of Indigenous Content in the Nigerian Telecommunication Sector, and to further maintain that focus, it is themed: Facilitating Policy Implementation to Deliver Value in the Nigerian Telecoms Sector.

“This policy was launched on May 6, 2021 by President Muhammadu Buhari, and according to the President, the policy is in line with the current administration’s commitment to ensure that Nigerians become active participants in the sectors of the economy. This commitment had earlier been expressed in the Presidential Order 005 on “Planning of Projects, Promotion of Nigerian Content in Contracts and Science, Engineering and Technology” and the Presidential Order 003 on “Support for Local Content Procurements by Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria”.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this forum therefore has been designed by the Business Metrics Nigeria Team to take the promises of the indigenous content policy in the telecoms sector beyond verbal commitment. We believe we can only achieve objectives of the policy by creating active dialogue around it to ensure that individual stakeholders understand how they fit into the bigger picture and what role is expected of them to attain these objectives for the greater good of our economy.

“I am also glad to announce to you that today marks the birth of a new initiative and an addition to the mechanism of policy implementation in Nigeria. You will agree with me that Nigerian archive is replete with good policies across the various sectors of the economy. But poor implementation has always characterized the system.

“Our desire is to change this order of poetic policy pronouncement and prosaic execution by creating a midpoint interface between the government and private sector players, where policies can be dissected, digested and driven to effective implementation, and later appraised using measurable metrics to assess their success over time.

“The journey for the Policy Implementation Assisted Forum has just started today with its focus on the National Policy for the Promotion of Indigenous Content in the Nigerian Telecommunication Sector, going forward, the forum shall address various other policies across telecoms sector, banking, oil & gas, aviation, agriculture, mining, MSME sectors, among others.”

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