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Juwah Receives Atcon, Says NCC Shall Be Fair, Firm
Dr. Eugene Juwah, executive vice chairman and chief executive officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission, (NCC) has declared that the telecom regulatory body under his leadership will uphold the principles of transparency, fairness, and firmness in managing the nation’s telecom industry.
Juwah who spoke during a courtesy visit by the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, (Atcon) led by Titi Omo-Ettu, its President, said his administration will entrench stakeholder consultations in all its actions and programmes to ensure that the Commission’s achievements are sustained and expanded.
“You are all aware of the success that this Commission has recorded in the past. I am therefore privileged to have been given this opportunity to serve the nation in a sector whose strides are very visible in the economy. “I have no option than to give it my best shot and to ensure that the legacy of success is sustained, and further expanded”, he said while commending Atcon for visiting to show support in his first week in office.
Juwah promised to continue with the many programmes of the commission that were initiated by its former leadership.
He told Atcon members that on the immediate, the Commission is set to tackle the issue of quality of service and within days will host a stakeholders forum to find address the issue.
To the telecom operators, the NCC boss had a direct message: “We want them to give good services to Nigerians at affordable prices. We want them to play by the rules of regulation. We want them to join us to make the industry better for the benefit of all”.
Juwah said the Commission respects Atcon and its leadership as a credible organization which the Commission will leverage in its consultative processes with the stakeholders. He promised to support the organization in its quest to create awareness about the telecom industry, which is one of the mandates of the Commission.
Omo-Ettu had earlier in his address, said the visit is to congratulate Dr. Juwah and ATCON members that the government has found one of their own who is capable of regulating the industry and that the association will be available to support and advise the Commission.
The Atcon boss reported that the operators are doing their best in the SIM Card registration programme but requested the Commission to give adequate time and publicity about the programme.
“We do not think that the Commission should leave the issue of sensitization to the operators. For one reason: the operators have their own interests and we think that our country has interest that is not discordant but is superior to the interest of the operators.
“We therefore think that our people will listen to NCC more than they will listen to operators”, he said.
On number portability, Omo-Ettu advised the Commission to take a cautious approach in its implementation. “There are many problems that must be resolved and again we caution that it should not be rushed because we did not find it imposed on us, we are deliberately embracing it so why should we begin to rush in a manner that we won’t do it very well”, he said.
He told the NCC boss that up to date, the private sector has not been properly integrated in the nation’s interactions with the international telecom community as done in the other parts of the world. He requested the Commission to take steps to ensure the inclusion of ATCON members as part of its international delegations to international conferences.
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Mutual Benefits Decries Low Insurance Penetration, Seeks Policy Changes
Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc has decried the low insurance penetration in the country, calling for policy changes to increase insurance uptake by Nigerians.
Mr. Femi Asenuga, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Mutual Benefits, who made the call at a workshop for insurance journalists, advocated for media support in ensuring policy changes, shaping public understanding of insurance and deepening insurance penetration in Nigeria.
While emphasizing the important role of the media in educating the insuring public on how insurance contributes to economic resilience, he said the ability of insurance journalists to communicate the complexities of insurance in a relatable and impactful way is vital in building public trust and confidence in the industry as well as encouraging more people to embrace insurance.
Asenuga said: “We are far from where we are supposed to be as a country. Nigeria with a population of over 200 million and as the giant of Africa should not only be in theory. As the press, you have a major role to play in changing the narrative of insurance penetration in the country.
The change is not only expected at the consumer level but also at policy making because that is where everything starts from.”
In her presentation “The Role of Insurance in National Development,” Head, Technical Department, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc., Mrs. Titilayo Akinsiku, highlighted some of the roles insurance plays in national development.
They include, according to her, Risk Mitigation and Financial Stability; Business Continuity and Resilience; Social Welfare and Inclusivity; Risk Management and Sustainable Development as well as Investment and Capital Formation.
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Thabo Mbeki Tells African leaders to Emulate Relationship Between Nigerian and South African Musicians
Thabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa has advised current African presidents to emulate the impressive relationship between Nigeria and South African musicians.
Mbeki said the African artists have managed to forge a formidable relationship and strong collaborative strategies which has seen them popularise both countries’ entertainment sectors and create wealth for the industry’s participants but the political leaders in Africa are locked in baseless egocentrism and territorialism which prevents generation of wealth amongst African countries.
Mbeki said before now that Africa used to be feared due to a strong pan-Africanism consciousness among leaders and deliberate policy formulations directed towards giving it a force of power.
He, however, regretted that today’s leaders lack such political will, are more Eurocentric and lack clear direction on how Africa should remain a liberated continent.
“Political will to manage diversity is central to the survival of all of the African states because there’s no African state which is not characterized by the diversity of its population now,” Mbeki said at his Thabo Mbeki Foundation premises, Johannesburg while hosting the third cohort of the MTN-MIP Fellows
“And so if you want to keep a continent or a country together, there’s got to be a conscious political decision. There is one outstanding example in this regard – Tanzania.
“When Tanzania was known as Tanganyika, there were two very important decisions under Julius Nyerere to keep the whole country together. One of them was to have one central language.
“Nyerere decided that everybody must speak Swahili and abandon tribal or regional languages. So, everybody speaks Swahili. The second decision was the abolition of the institution of chieftaincy ship. So there’s no chief of this tribe or that tribe.
“These were conscious decisions taken by the political leadership. They wanted to build one nation out of the Tanganyikans, and it’s worked.
“So, because the people of Tanzania have gotten used to being one, even some few years back when some political people, in Tanzania, started resurrecting this matter about tribal identity in order to advance their own political futures, the consciousness one united Tanzania, was strong enough to defeat them.
“So, that’s why I’m saying it’s a political decision here. South Africa is very fortunate in that respect, because you know, the diamond mines, which were first discovered in the 19th century, attracted people from Southern Africa, from as far as Angola among others to South Africa.
“Then a bit later, gold mining came and domestically, there was a lot of movement of people, and social economic development.
“Recall that at the formation of the African National Congress in 1912, one of its principal slogans was to bury the demon of tribalism.
“So since the beginning of the 20th century, you’ve had a political organization whose task was to make sure that all of this algorithm come together so that you see you got to a point before liberation here, if you said in 1960 to the African community here, wherever you are in the country, you say, who’s your national leader? They would say Alberto.
“So, what has happened on the continent is a regression from the kind of pan-Africanist commitment that we had with other earlier leaders on the continent, and the weakening of that resolve has negative consequences like the frosty relationship between South Africa and Nigeria.
“Another is the poor Visa regulation which has made it very difficult for cross border trade.
“And now addressing the challenge is to address the larger political problems. The point is always being made about the relationship between the artists, Nigerian, South African artists, and what they are able to do,” he added.
News
World Bank says 40% Nigerian MSMEs are Owned by Women
A report by the World Bank has established that 40 per cent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria are owned by women, with most of the businesses growing at a remarkable rate.
In the World Bank latest report released on Wednesday, the global bank, through its Nigeria Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), partnership with the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) and two commercial banks in Nigeria – Access Bank and Sterling Bank, established development of innovative credit solutions that expanded access to finance for women entrepreneurs.
The report summarizes key lessons, which include initial diagnostic; an assessment of demand for business loans; analysis of SMEs who applied to and/or received Access Bank cash flow loans, and administrative data from Access Bank’s cashflow loan programme.
“Our objective is to provide insights into the successes and challenges of disbursing loans to women-led SMEs (WSMEs) in Nigeria.
This research is being conducted in partnership with the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), which is also carrying out an impact evaluation that will capture how cashflow-based lending impacts male- vs female-led firms’ access to credit and business performance,” the report added.
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