Umar Danbatta, executive vice president of NCC, revealed at an interactive meeting on the 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF-FSP) that the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) is expected to earn over N500 billion for the Federal Government in 2023 through the auctioning of the 5G spectrum.
These forecasts are based on recent NCC disclosures, he added. The amount will largely be made from the auction of two 5G spectrums and the bidding process for the 2023 spectrum auction.
According to Danbatta, the NCC generated N318 billion in Q2 2022 compared to N257 billion in the previous quarter. This growth in revenue was made possible by MTN and Mafab Communications' payment of financial obligations related to the 5G spectrum they won in December. Each of the two companies disbursed the sum of US$273.6 million.
For his part, Solomon Adeola, chairman of the committee, applauded the effort of the commission. Adeola said the revenue generated from the commission will go a long way toward helping reduce the deficit proposed in the 2023 budget.