By Prince Osuagwu
Baring any quick intervention by the federal government, Nigeria may soon lose the fastest growing telecom economy toga, under the heat being generated by the over regulation of the telecommunications industry.

Half way into the first decade of telecom revolution in Nigeria, the country became Africa’s fastest growing telecom market, overtaking South Africa which dominated Africa’s share in the global market.

But this record is seriously under threat by the in-fighting between government agencies over the right to regulate industry operators. The danger of this development is the hydra headed monsters— multi regulation and multi taxation, which it fosters in the sector.

Pennultimate week, a light drama unfolded in Abuja between the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC and its counterpart in the environmental ministry, the National Environmental Standards and Regulatory Enforcement Agency, NESREA, where the duo canceled each other  over a base station belonging to MTN. The base station was shut by NESREA a couple of weeks back, with the agency announcing that the site did not meet  setback requirements for a base station.

The following week, the official regulator of the sector visited the site in question and opened it, stating that it was wrong of NESREA to have shut it without any recourse to NCC. The officials of NCC said the base station met its requirements  stipulated for base stations.

NESREA officials were to later return to the site to reseal it a couple of days later, claiming that NCC opened the facility without lawful authority. The Director, Inspection and Enforcement of NESREA, Mrs. Ronke Soyombo, who led NESREA team of Inspection and Enforcement team to reseal the premises, insisted that the base station would remain shut for allegedly violating environmental laws and falling short of the 10 metres set back from a residential area prescribed by the agency.

The official stated that MTN would pay a fine of N5 million for the alleged default, and a daily fine of N50, 000 for as long as the operator failed to comply. She told the press that in addition, the agency would press charges against MTN “for acting outside the confines of the law and also for illegally removing a seal which was put by NESREA. That is a criminal offence against the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

As at the time of writing this report, NCC was yet to respond. But industry professionals who spoke to Vanguard however expressed dismay at the development, saying it may stunt the growth of the industry.

How many regulators for telecom?

For instance, Mr Maxwell Onoja, a telecom expert said that “there can only be one regulator in an industry. Where you have multiple bodies controlling an industry, such industry is doomed. “It is the duty of the industry regulator to set standards, which is what the NCC has done by prescribing certain requirements that operators must follow before setting up base stations.

If NESREA has an issue with that, the proper thing to do is to reach out to NCC and resolve the differences. You cannot victimise an operator for complying with the standards set by the body statutorily empowered to regulate that industry. That is simply not fair and doesn’t make sense either,” he added.

Subscribers lament

Just like Onoja advocated government’s intervention in order to forestall the untold hardship the situation could create for subscribers who get their telecom feed from the site, many subscribers in Abuja are already complaining.

An  Abuja-based subscriber who identified herself as Jane Asuquo, cried that “right now, making calls in certain areas in Abuja is very difficult,  Apparently the base stations are not enough and we  should be looking at how to increase the number of base stations, instead of shutting down the existing ones. I think the Federal Government needs to step in and spell out the policy on who can set the standards to be followed by the operators,” she submitted.

Multiple regulation, taxation

Meanwhile the Chairman of Association of Licensed Telecom Operators in Nigeria, ALTON, Engr Gbenga Adebayo has consistently condemned the tendency for government agencies to prey on telecom operators. According to him, “what happens when you want to build a site is that you must go to about ten agencies of government to get approval.  This is down to the issue of multiple taxation by local, state and federal governments” he said.

For him, this is a scourge and it is slowing down the pace of growth in the sector and making it difficult for the sector to surmount the quality of service challenge.  He said that until a law is passed against shutting down of base stations, there will continue to be poor quality of service and other challenges.

NASS to wade in

However, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremmadu, last week, promised that the National Assembly would wade into the matter. He also bemoaned what he described as  inter-agency regulatory overlap/multiple regulation and said the menace has left Nigerians short-changed even as it brews confusion and bad blood among the regulatory agencies.

Ekweremmadu spoke in Lagos at the Beacons of ICT award organised by Communications Week newspaper. He  promised that the National Assembly would wade into the matter before it undermines the success recorded so far in the sector.

According to him, “Indeed such issues as the one happening between NCC and NESREA should not arise and should be checked. You can be rest assured that the National Assembly is taking note of this and other challenges and will continue to provide the necessary legislative framework to strengthen the Nigerian ICT industry”.

History of NCC, NESREA fight over telecom mast

But the struggle between NCC and NESREA over who would regulate the operators is not new. Roughly two years ago, NCC and NESREA clashed over the issue of who ought to police and regulate erection of telecommunications masts in the telecommunications sector.

The clash was an offshoot of the decommissioning by NESREA of a telecom mast belonging to Globacom for allegedly violating environmental regulations. The mast, located within OAU Quarters, Maitama, Abuja boosted the operator’s signal strength around Maitama and its environs and was reportedly erected following complaints of poor quality of service in Abuja and particularly in that area.

NESREA however stated that the erection of the mast was in contravention of the procedure laid down for such a structure. It therefore shut down the base station without any recourse to the NCC, the official regulator of the sector.

The acting Executive Vice Chairman of the commission at the time, Dr. Bashir Gwandu, did not take the matter lightly  and publicly criticised NESREA ,warning that multiple regulation of the telecom sector would compound the problems of the sector.

The then Minister of Environment, Mr. John Odey was to later wade in with a view to finding a common ground between the two government agencies. A meeting was called to deliberate on the issue of telecom masts and their impact on the environment.

At the meeting held inside the conference room of the Ministry of Environment, Abuja, Gwandu argued that Nigeria could not have acceptable quality of service in the telecommunications sector if impediments were placed on the efforts of operators to roll out service. He stressed particularly that the gains of the past years could be frittered away if multiple regulation was allowed to take root as it would scare investors away from the sector.

The position of NESREA, at the meeting through its DG, Dr. Ngeri Benebo, was that the agency had a mandate to ensure that all necessary Environmental Impact Assessment was carried out before any masts were erected in any part of the country.

“We are not against any telecommunications company. Our mandate is to ensure that every base station has its Environmental Impact Assessment.” she told the meeting.

While some amicable resolution was achieved at the meeting, the underlying issues subsisted and have since then, kept surfacing from time to time. Indeed, only a few weeks after that peace meeting, two base stations of MTN in Abuja were shut down by NESREA, without any warrant, according to the operator. The subscribers covered by the affected base station and its environs were plunged into severe service difficulties.

Zain and Visafone were soon the next targets, as their base stations in various parts of the country, were also shut down by NESREA, prompting the umbrella body of the operators, the Association of Licensed Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) to step in, warning of the dire consequences of the new trend.

Other agencies too want a share

However, NESREA is not the only agency of government which lays claim to the right to ‘regulate’ an aspect of Nigeria’s blossoming telecom . There are a dozen others, including local and state governments, seeking to lord it over operators in the telecom sector. To show they mean business, they proceed to shut down base stations or otherwise disable the services of the operators in various parts of the country, complicating the quality of service challenge.

Only a few days ago, Lagos State government announced the formation of a new body called Urban Furniture Regulatory Unit, which the state is empowering to regulate masts and towers in Lagos. This is after its earlier plans of using  Lagos State Infrastructure and Maintenance Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA) to do so were rebuffed by ALTON, using court pronouncements

In Osun State, a local authority sometime ago moved in on MTN’s base station in Osogbo, sealing it off for what allegedly non-payment of the state’s Land Use Clearance Fees. The fees were for all the operator’s base stations in the state capital.

In Ebonyi State, MTN’s backbone and hub site was sealed in May 2010 by the Ebonyi State Environmental Protection Agency for what the agency called non-payment of Environmental Impact Assessment; Monitoring, Sanitation, Effluent Discharge and Environmental Support Fees for seven years, that is, from 2003.

More recently, the operator’s four base transceiver stations in Imo State were sealed by officials of the State Ministry of Petroleum and Environmental Audit Report.

In July 2010, five Airtel base transceiver stations (BTS) located in Umuahia, Abia State, were closed by the state’s Task Force for reasons of non-payment of N19 million, allegedly for Tower Premises Registration and Renewal fees.

In April 2011, the Abuja Municipal Management Council (AMMC) slammed MTN with a bill of N257 million for what it called annual charge and thereafter,made spirited efforts to shut down the operator’s base stations.

Airtel on its part was slammed with a bill of N262.4 million by the Imo State Environmental Transformation Commission (ENTRACO). The bill was dubbed Pest/Vector Control Fees and Fumigation Charges for the years 2008-2011.

In Ondo State, the operators also got a raw deal as the state’s Signage and Advertisement Agency slammed them with various bills for what it called ‘network identification signages’ hoisted at their BTS sites in the state.

These have always attracted serious public outcry. If one could aggregate the views of relevant stakeholders on these developments, it paints a suicidal picture on the country’s economic health, if the government trifles with a sector that contributes over seven percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).