May 10, 2023

The House of Representatives has received relevant documents from the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) concerning 1, 014 contracts it carried out under the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF).

The Ad hoc Committee probing the inability of NCC to provide widespread available telecommunication network received the document in Abuja on Wednesday.

Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman, NCC submitted the documents to the committee, which is also investigating accruals and utilisation of funds in the USFP.

It would be recalled that the committee, headed by Rep. Bamidele Salam, had on May 9, demanded details of the projects including specific addresses and project description.

The committee also demanded the specifications for each of the contracts that were awarded and listed in the 91-page document submitted by NCC.

The committee had pointed out that there was no specific description of what was done in the contracts and they were counched in a manner that they would be hard to track.

It also noted that 80 per cent of the projects had no specific location.

The NCC was expected to have submitted the required documents on May 9, to enable the committee analyse them during it’s next hearing which held today.
Salam said the committee said NCC submitted the relevant documents late hence they could not go through them.

“The committee needs to go through the documents,” he said, adding that it would get back to NCC on another date that would be communicated to them.

The lawmakers frowned at the absence of the Chief Executive Officers of telecommunication companies, who were summoned to make presentations at the hearing.(NAN)