2022 budget: Senate approves N633.39bn for NCC, N8.8bn for USPF

Senate has approved the budget of N633,393,283,000 for the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC for the 2022 fiscal year.

Similarly, the upper legislative chamber approved N8,824,847,408 as 2022 budget for the Universal Service Provision Fund, USPF.

The two approvals followed the consideration of a report by the Committee on Communications, chaired by Senator Oluremi Tinubu (APC Lagos Central), during Wednesday’s plenary.

In her presentation, Senator Tinubu said out of the approved sum for NCC, N86,242,952 is for recurrent expenditure; N30,336,144 for capital expenditure and N42,445,864 for special projects; N466,868,323 was transfer to federal government; and N7,500,000 as transfer to Universal Service Provision Fund.

She explained that the commission’s revenue of N633.3 billion consists of the annual licensing fees (N1.5 billion); annual operating levy (N124 billion); spectrum fees charges (N450.2 billion); numbering plan (N9.5 billion); administrative charges (N4.4 billion); type approval fees (N902 million) and sanction fees (N165 million).

The chairman added that others include: sundry income – N5 million, federal government intervention for broadband infrastructure – N41.6 billion and transfer from reserve – N1 billion.

In a related development, the Senate also approved the sum of N8,824,847,408 as 2022 budget for the Universal Service Provision Fund.

Senator Tinubu, in a second presentation, said out of the sum approved, N1,923,760,092 was for recurrent expenditure; N357,959,020 for capital expenditure; and N6,543,128,296 for projects and programmes.