He said this in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, while fielding questions from journalists at a ceremony where the Otun Olubadan of Ibadanland, High Chief Lekan Balogun, was conferred with the 2016 Achievers Award of Excellence.
He said the Federal Government has decided to put the issue of the fine against MTN behind it, in the belief not to jeopardise inflow of investments into the country.
The minister, however, said telecommunications operators in Nigeria have a duty to the country to continue to improve on their services, stating that Nigerians have been paying through thick and thin to enjoy and patronise the operators.
“The MTN fine is a closed matter. The executive of the Federal Government has taken a decision. They (MTN) have remitted a substantial part of the penalty to (government). And as far as I am concerned, it is a closed matter.
Nigeria must move on. We must not do anything to drive away foreign investments because foreign investments are potent means of bringing about employment, creating wealth, creating development. “And we know that before MTN and others came on board, Nigeria had only less than 500,000 phone lines. Today, because of the assistance that MTN and other operators have brought to Nigeria, we have more than 152million lines. And MTN is the dominant operator in the field.
They control almost 50 per cent of the lines. “Even if they had violated the laws, we have put in the necessary penalty and I think that in the interest of continuing to encourage foreign investors, we must put a halt to the limitless crisis. So, that was what the Federal Executive Council has done to ensure that we move ahead. My message to the telecommunications operators in Nigeria now is that they have a duty to Nigeria to continue to improve on their services.
Nigerians have been paying through thick and thin to enjoy and patronise the operators. To whom much is given, much more is expected,” he said.
Meanwhile, efforts by the Hon. Saheed Fijabi- headed House Committee on Communications to unravel the reasons for the huge reduction of the N1.04 trillion to N330 billion did not yield dividends, Monday.
Two ministers crucial to the investigation, the Minster for Communications, Adebayo Shittu and the Minister for Justice and Attorney- General of the Federation were conspicuously absent at the fact- finding session, effectively truncating the session.
Only the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Mr. Abubakar Dambata and his Director of Communications, Tony Ojobo were present at the session. This is the fifth meeting on the fine issue, without any resolution.
Fijabi told the meeting that the Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami sent a letter that he would be representing the President at an event in Lagos and would therefore be absent from the meeting.
Shittu did not appear at the session as at the time the closed- door session began, even though he was said to be expected.
Fijabi expressed his disappointment on the issue wondering why the huge reduction on the fine from N1. 04 trillion to N330 billion came to be.
He said the condition attached to the reduction that MTN trades on the Nigerian Stock Market ” is a business benefit to MTN.”
“I don’t think NCC alone can face the questions. This is going to be the last meeting as the parties are not here.”
The lawmaker said the committee would go ahead with the writing of its report and subsequently submit it to the House.
The meeting then dissolved into a closed- door meeting.
The chairman of the Committee, Saheed Fijabi had wondered why the sudden shift in the position of the NCC on the MTN fine.
NCC had in a March 1 2016 memo said: ” The proposal to pay the sum of N300 billion as against the N1.04 trillion ( and subsequently reduced to N700 billion by the Federal Government of Nigeria “FGN”) is not supported by any verifiable justification.”
However, efforts by the committee to investigate the reason for the huge reduction has been hampered by the absence of one government official or the other at the different meetings it had called on the issue.
At a previous meeting the committee chair had noted that it was wrong to accept a reduction while the House was investigating the ongoing negotiations between the Federal Government and MTN on the fine.
“As a House, we have opposed the reduction of the fine because there is no provision in the NCC’s Act that the fine can be reduced. In fact, section 21 of the Act stipulates that even the CEO of a defaulting firm can be made to pay additional fine of over N200,000 on each of the lines.”
The lawmaker had said ordinarily, MTN’s total fine “should be doubled to about N3 trillion and not even the N1.4 trillion they were asked to pay.”
