The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has commended the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for unveiling the Commission’s Strategic Management Plan (SMP) 2020-2024.
The NCC had on Sunday, through a statement signed by the Director, Public Affairs at the NCC, Dr. Henry Nkemadu said that the SMP will leverage the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) as well as the new National Broadband Plan (NBP) 2020 2025 Roadmaps.
The statement disclosed that the Strategic Management Plan will cover the guiding principles and act as the operations manual for the Commission towards actualising the digital economy agenda of the Federal Government in the next five years.
But ATCON in a goodwill message to the NCC, signed by its President, Olusola Teniola, and made available to DigitalTimesNG, said it was particularly happy that the Commission under the supervising Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, ably headed by Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, has called the entire important stakeholders in the Nigerian ICT and telecoms sector to unveil a plan that would last between 2020 – 2024.
“There is an adage which says that failure to plan is equivalent to plan to fail. With this planning which is expected to take its root from the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) and the new National Broadband Plan (NBP) 2020 – 2025, it is expected to be more successful than the previous ones.
“This is because ATCON will collaborate with the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, NCC, NITDA, NigCoMSAT, Galaxy Backbone, USPF, and DBI to work the plan out with all other stakeholders especially our members through the initiation of programmes in order to realize it set goals for the industry,” ATCON said in the goodwill message.
ATCON stated that it should be stressed that the SMP takes into consideration the post-COVID-19 pandemic in relation to regulation of the Nigerian telecom sector viz-a-viz the expectations of players in the industry.
“Once again, we congratulate Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of NCC and the management of NCC.
“ATCON pledges to work with NCC in order to realize the listed deliverables of the plan for Nigeria and the generality of the people of our great country,” part of the goodwill message read.
Recall that the NCC, while announcing the launch of the Strategic Management Plan (SMP) noted that it was essentially developed in-house with the stamp of the Management and Board, and comes as a visioning document of the Commission for planning, monitoring, analysing and assessment of the Commission’s goals and objectives in the next five years.
At the formal launch of the Plan on Tuesday, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, explained that the new Strategic Management Plan (SMP) 2020-2024 by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) will be a pedestal to drive the implementation of the Federal Government’s digital economy vision.
According to the Minister, the launch of the SMP demonstrated the Commission’s serious improvement in performance matrix and its efforts in accelerating the implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) and the National Broadband Plan (NBP) 2020 – 2025 of the Federal Government.
Over 700 estimated guests, including representatives of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), Chief Executives of telecoms companies, the media, among others, joined the SMP launch online.