Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umar Dambatta on Wednesday statedthat the Commission recently conducted a successful fifth-generation spectrum auction which generated over $500 million for the Federal Government.

He also unveiled plans for the deployment of technology to verify annual operating levies (AOL), tax and other payments by network service providers to the Federal Government.

Professor Dambatta made this known in Abuja during an investigative hearing held at the instance of House of Representatives’ Ad-hoc Committee investigating the duplication of functions of Agencies of the Federal Government.

He said: “We are currently going to deploy a technology solution. We call it Revenue Assurance Solution.

“We have finished signing the MOU with the Consultant that is going to do this deployment, so that we can independently verify that the amount of annual operating levy (AOL) they are paying and other taxes are indeed what they are supposed to pay and therefore not shortchange the NCC or government when it comes to payment of taxes.

“We, through what we call annual operating levy, run our operations, pay our staff salaries and allowances and even provide resources for intervention in the diverse areas of information and communication technology in the various parts of the country.

“These interventions are verifiable. There is no state of the federation that we don’t provide interventions in the diverse areas of ICT. We also provide training. We would like to ensure our citizens are ICT savvy by embracing this important technology because that is what the whole is doing.

“That is what we can do in order to ensure our citizens are socially and economically transformed to change the way they are doing things, the way they collaborate and innovate.

(Nigerian Tribune)