By Emmanuel Elebeke

The Executive Vice-Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, is among the heads of key government’s agencies invited to make a presentation at a two-day retreat on enhancing revenue generation in the country.

Umaru Garba Danbatta, NCC boss

The retreat is targeted at sensitizing stakeholders on the funding of the 2016 Budget, and is scheduled to hold from July 13-15, 2016, in Kano State.

Similarly, the retreat, which is organized by the Federal Ministry of Finance, is expected to feature technical presentations from relevant ministries, departments and agencies, with a view to addressing impediments to effective non-oil revenue generation, identifying hidden revenue sources and articulating best practices for non-oil revenue profile.

The EVC is also expected to share with the participants, the NCC’s experience, as one of the few Federal Government’s agencies, which have made significant progress towards non-oil revenue generation.

The NCC, which recently emerged African Regulator of the year at African Information Technology and Telecoms Awards (AITTA) in Ghana, said it had remitted N70 billion to the federation account in the last one year.

This, is in addition to the N30 billion paid by MTN Nigeria Communications Limited as a part payment of the N330billion fine slammed by the Commission and $ 96 million paid by the company for 5 MHz of 6 slots of 30MHz in the 2.6GHz Band.

Under his leadership, the NCC is also the winner of the European Award for Best Practices 2016. The award ceremony, which held in Brussels, Belgium, was hosted by the European Society for Quality Research (ESQR), an affiliate of the European Union (EU).

No fewer than 63 countries participated in the award ceremony out of which the NCC won the European Award for Best Practices 2016.

The award which is the Gold category is “in recognition of its outstanding commitment, support and results in quality management strategies.”