NCC Refutes Allegation of Incurring Deficit Budget, Declares Achievement of State Accelerated Broadband Initiative, SABI

The attention of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, was drawn to an online publication with a headline titled: “NCC Incurs a Deficit of N17bn, Spending N35.2bn on Personnel, Consultancy Fees.”

The Commission, in a statement by it spokesman, Reuben Muoka, said, it was “Concerned with the inability of the online publication to accurately interpret the contents of its 2021 Annual Reports, which have been made public.” As a result, the publication gave a wrong impression that the Commission incurred a N17bn deficit, because of expenditures on personnel and consultancy fees.

Though the Statement of the Financial Performance of the Commission for the period which ended December in 2021, clearly indicates that the sum of N17.3bn was a “Surplus/Deficit retained for the period”, this according to the Commission does not imply that they incurred a cash deficit as the expenditure in its financials were both in cash and accruals applicable to the year.

The Commission said “If the publication had inquired of the constituents of our expenditure, it would have learnt that the expenditures for the year 2021 included accruals for items undergoing procurement at the end of the year, like the State Accelerated Broadband Initiative, SABI, which were being implemented by the Commission, and which was standing in the sum of about N24bn in the financial report.

The Commission also remitted an Operating Surplus/Spectrum Fees of estimated N197.7bn to the Federal Government, under the same Financial Performance Reporting period, and had a bank balance of about N46.97bn, erasing any doubt that there was any deficit spending.