Commission (NCC) on Wednesday
sealed the office of Nokia-Alcatel
located in Lekki, Lagos for
operating without license.
The Head of Enforcement Unit, NCC,
Mr Salisu Abdul, while speaking
with newsmen shortly after the
sealing in Lagos, said that the
company had been operating
without license for years.
Abdul said that during one of the
commission’s monitoring activities,
the team discovered that the
company had not obtained the
requisite authorisation to render
services.
He said that Nokia-Alcatel was
involved in equipment
manufacturing, supply and
installation therefore it could have
obtained the “Sale and Installation’’
license.
According to him, the license, which
barely cost N2 million will give
Nokia the authority to operate
wireless transmission,
manufacturing and sale of
equipment, among others.
He said that after notifying the
company for the need to be
licensed, it only applied for the
license about three months ago, but
did not complete the process.
”As a matter of fairness and
transparency, we decided to pay
them a visit, and we however
discovered that they only applied
for license about three months back
and are yet to complete the process
for the license.
”Basically, we have decided to seal
off the premises of Nokia until it
obtains the requisite authorisation.
”The NCC is the sole regulator of the
telecom sector in Nigeria and one of
our functions is the issuance of
telecom licenses.
”It is criminal for any service
provider to operate in the country
without license. We have sealed the
office until they comply,” Abdul
said.
He said that Nokia-Alcatel had been
operating in the country for some
years now, and had failed to obtain
license.
According to him, there may be
attendant consequence for the
infraction as the company may be
fined before its office will be
opened for business.
”We have to charge them based on
the number of years they have
operated without license. We will
use our discretion to charge them,”
he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment