Nigeria’s telecom faces many risks that must be eliminated – Danbatta

According to Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the country’s telecom sector is currently exposed to a number of hazards, which all stakeholders must work together to minimize.

He claims that among other things, the industry is at risk from cybercrime and online fraud, regulatory load, multiple taxes, telecommunications infrastructure vandalism, right-of-way issues, access to foreign exchange, and interindustry debt.

Speaking at a stakeholder forum in Abuja, Danbatta, who was represented by Yetunde Akinloye, the director of policy, competition, and economic analysis, said the purpose of the forum was to examine a variety of problems that hamper the implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy & Strategy (NDEPS) 2020–2030 and to advance the growth of a sustainable ICT sector in Nigeria.

In order to develop multi-stakeholder initiatives aimed at detecting and tackling emerging risks in the telecoms sector to ensure sustainable and impactful growth, Danbatta said:

“While risk management has been critical in our regulatory service delivery, we acknowledge that all stakeholders must be concerned about the varied uncertainties that confront the Industry. There is no gainsaying the fact that the Information and Communication Technologies Sector is inherently filled with several business and technology risks.
“It is, therefore, important that regulatory risks be minimized to ensure that services are not disrupted, and consumers obtain the best and latest services that are globally available. The Commission in a bid to ensure that operators in the industry enjoy a conducive operating environment has had cause to seek government interventions and collaborate with other Agencies of Government in addressing major sectoral risks,” he added.

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The event’s facilitator Eniola Olugboyega, who addressed subjects of interest to operators, warned that taking risks can have either a beneficial or bad effect on enterprises. He added that among other things, customer discontent, penalties and legal action, product failure, and lost business prospects are some of the most frequent losses resulting from inappropriate risk management in the industry.

He claims that good risk management supports good decision-making, protects assets and reputation, and confronts risks. Accordingly, he stated that regulatory risk, insecurity, data breach risk, foreign exchange risk, rising CAPEX risk, human resource risk, and the inability to capitalize on innovative business models are all telecommunication risks from the operators’ perspective.