USPF Project Probe: NCC submits 1,014 contract documents to Reps committee

May 10, 2023

The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) on Wednesday submitted relevant documents to the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee currently Investigating the inability of the Commission to provide a widespread available telecommunication network concerning 1,014 contracts it carried out under the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF).

The Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, submitted the documents to the Committee, which is also investigating accruals and utilization of funds in the USFP.

The Committee, headed by Hon Bamidele Salam, had on Monday demanded details of the projects including specific addresses and project description and specifications for each of the contracts that were awarded and listed in the 91-page document the NCC submitted.

The Committee had pointed out that there was no specific description of what was done in the contracts and they were couched in a manner that they would be hard to track.

It also noted that 80 percent of the projects had no specific location.

The Commission was expected to have submitted the required documents on Tuesday at 2pm to enable the committee analyse them during the Wednesday hearing.

However, Hon Salam said that the NCC had submitted the relevant documents late hence they could not go through them.

He said the Committee needed to go through the documents and would l get back to NCC on another date that would be communicated to them.

The lawmakers frowned at the absence of the Chief Executive Officers of telecommunication companies, who were summoned to make presentations at the hearing.

The Committee warned that the Commission would be sanctioned according to the dictates of the law if it continued to disregard parliament invitations.

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