NCC to review telcos’ forex demand on foreign transactions
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is in the process of reviewing forex requests by telecom operators on tangible and intangible foreign transactions, the commission has said. The NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, disclosed this at the stakeholders’ forum on framework for confirmation of Reasonableness of Service Requests in Abuja on Tuesday. He […]
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is in the process of reviewing forex requests by telecom operators on tangible and intangible foreign transactions, the commission has said.
The NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, disclosed this at the stakeholders’ forum on framework for confirmation of Reasonableness of Service Requests in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said the review had become imperative considering the fact that there had been increase in volumes of foreign-based transactions by Nigerian telecom operators.
Represented by Mr. Bashir Idris, Head Competition and Tariff Unit of the NCC, he also said the commission had observed instances of over-quoted invoices, double submissions and untenured contracts.
The commission, he said, had also observed demand notices not backed by required valid contract agreements, which often result in raising queries or outright decline of the affected invoices.
He said the Central Bank of Nigeria had sought the assistance of the commission to address the increased demand for foreign exchange and the attended challenges to ensure the country’s isn’t short-changed.
“Actually this forum is to present a revised guideline for processing reasonableness of service request; what we mean by that is that there are tangible and intangible telecom transactions being done by the telecom operators.
“The Commission is in charge of assessing the reasonability of the pricing of the intangible access like: software, bandwidth and the like which the operators often have to pay overseas vendors.
“Now it is a collaboration between the NCC and the CBN so as to prevent capital flight and all manners of infringements on our foreign exchange and reserve to make sure that whatever the operators are paying out their vendors outside the country are actually what they should be paying out, so that the country is not shortchanged”, he said.
He said the forum is for the principal stakeholders: Banks, operators and their overseas vendors “to say this is the way we are going to go from now.”
“We have had three previous experiences in 2003, 2009 and 2013; this is a further review brought about by certain challenges that we have noticed in the last couple of years’, he said.
The NCC boss also said the commission had included the Value Added Service (VAS) Operators and VAS Aggregators to the category of operators eligible to submit request to access Forex.