NCC establishes working group on multiple taxation

The Nigerian Communication Commission on Thursday said the commission had established an Industry Working Group on multiple taxation and regulations.
This information is contained in the 2nd Quarter 2016 Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement report posted on the commission’s website.
The report said: “As part of the strategy to address the issues of multiple taxations and regulations in the Nigerian telecommunications industry, the commission had facilitated the establishment of the IWG on multiple taxations and regulations.
“The Commission hosted a successful IWG meeting, which was chaired by the Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta.
“A key highlight of the meeting was the presentation of the proposed Alternative Environmental Impact Assessment for the Nigerian Telecommunications Industry presented by Emerging Markets Telecommunication Service.
It said: “There has been a general concern in the industry that the current EIA process affects the fast deployment of telecommunications infrastructure required for good quality of service in the country.”
NCC said that at the end of the meeting, it was agreed that all other operators should review the proposal and forward their comments to the commission.
It said that the commission had also set up a regulatory intervention team that would at very short notice, intervene and engage other government agencies.
The team is set up with a view to resolving urgent cases and threats to critical telecoms infrastructure across the country.
It said that the commission had continued to monitor the porting process with a view to ensuring strict adherence to the Mobile Number Portability Regulation 2014, in addition to the business rules.
MNP is a service that allows a cell phone or Smartphone customer to change telecom carrier and keep the same phone number.
The commission said that the monitoring was in pursuant to the commission’s goal of sustaining the integrity of the Mobile Number Portability Scheme in the country.
It also stated: “To this end, a system audit of operators’ MNP Platform and Short Message Service Center was carried out during the period.
“In Quarter 2, 2016, this exercise focused attention on reviewing all rejected port requests by the donor within the period to ensure that these rejections were made