Telecoms operators lament House C’ttees overlapping oversight on sector

TELECOMS operators in the country have lamented the overlapping supervisory activities of House Committees on the telecommunications sector.

The operators, under the aegis of Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), in a letter, dated July 3, 2017 and addressed to the Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, sought his timely intervention.

The letter, signed by Chairman and the Executive Secretary of ALTON, Gbenga Adebayo and Kazeem Ladepo, noted that there have been increasing cases of enquiries and investigations with overlapping oversight by Committees of the House with regard to the operators of the tele- coms industry.

They lamented that the major cause of concern was the fact that oftentimes, the subject matter and requests of the committees tend to replicate the same scope with duplication of multiple requests for the same information.

“In some instances, the same documents are required by different ad-hoc committees investigating different aspects of the industry leading to confusion in the documentation process.

“Our members are also faced with the challenge of honouring concurrent public hearings and meeting requests from the various committees. By way of illustration, the House Committee on Telecommunications recently invited our members to hearings on ‘massive job losses’ and ‘massive revenue losses’.

“On the same date, our members also had an invitation from an Ad-hoc Committee of the House, investigating ‘the Health Implications of the Mounting of Telecommunications Masts close to Buildings’.

“In this respect, the operators had to send representatives on several site visits to 11 states in the country and have attended about six public hearings and technical sessions on the same, incurring huge cost,” the letter reads in part.

Meanwhile, after its formal unveiling to the media yesterday, 9mobile said it was still open to investors.

Its Chief Executive Officer, Boye Olusanya, made this known in Lagos, when the board announced the change of brand from Etisalat to 9mobile.