The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has exceeded its N36 billion projected revenue from spectrum license fees for 2021,after recording over N150bn revenue in the first five months of this year.
NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, stated this in a statement on Sunday.
The figure represents an over 400 percent increase in revenue budget performance in respect of spectrum fees generated by the Commission between January 1 and May 31, 2021, Danbatta said.
The money made from spectrum sales reflects significant contribution to the revenue drive of the Federal Government, the NCC boss adsed.
“Accordingly, the N150 billion spectrum revenue achieved in the first half of the year has been remitted to the Federal Government in line with the provisions of the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA), 2003, which mandates the Commission to remit proceeds from spectrum resources wholly into the government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF)”, he said.
He said the Commission, in its 2021 Budget which was considered and approved by both chambers of the National Assembly in December, 2020, projected a revenue of N36 billion from spectrum fee for the year 2021 but has remarkably surpassed this estimate.
He said the impressive uptick in spectrum fee was the result of the favourable turn of events for the telecom sector, which at the time of preparing the estimates for the 2021 Budget of the Commission was not clear due to the ravaging impact of COVID-19 on the global economy.
