The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has partnered with the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), to tackle criminal activities bedeviling the telecoms industry in the country.
NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Mr Reuben Muoka, made this known in a statement in Abuja.
He said that senior management staff of NSCDC in the South West Zone had at an exclusive workshop organised by the commission hailed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), sealed between the two government agencies.
Muoka said criminal activities such as telecom equipment vandalism and fraudulent registration of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards, among others, were going to be looked into.
The spokesman said topical issues discussed at the workshop covered the activities of NCC as presented by the relevant departments in the context of laws, other regulations and in relation to the roles of NSCDC.
The statement quoted the Executive Vice-Chairman (EVC) of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, as saying that the commission had over the years worked with relevant law enforcement agencies towards protecting telecoms sector from all kinds of criminality.
“Through despicable activities that are criminal and totally at variance with national security concerns of government.
“The deviant elements in our midst have been acting to undermine efforts put in place to consolidate the gains of the sector.
“These criminal activities include theft and vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure, the illegal use of fraudulently-registered Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards, operating without license, illegal call masking and so on,” he said.
Represented by Mr Ephraim Nwokonneya, Director, Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement at the commission, Danbatta said the gathering was to explore deployment of enabling laws, subsidiary legislations and extant guidelines to arrest criminality in the sector
He said the workshop was organiised as part of efforts to constantly engage and update them on new trends and existing regulations.
This, he said, required concerted efforts for their implementation towards enhancing sanity in the telecoms sector.
He commended NSCDC and other agencies for carrying out raids and mopping up fraudulently-registered SIM cards found in circulation.
The NCC boss also lauded the agencies for raising the banner of awareness on the need to protect critical national telecoms infrastructure.
(NAN)