Last month, the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), an arm of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), convened a stakeholders' meeting in Lagos, where it unveiled fresh plans to commence the implementation process of its 2013-2017 Strategic Management Plan (SMP) for the next five years, that will see telecoms services financing in rural communities.
Although USPF was sincere enough to admit that it was unable to achieve the set goals that were key to its earlier 2007-2011 SMP as a result of several challenges beyond its control, it however promised to make up for the lost ground in the new 2013-2017 SMP, through a renewed strategy that is expected to achieve results.
USPF Background The Nigerian Communications Act 2003 mandated the NCC to establish a USPF to promote widespread availability and usage of network services and application services throughout the country by encouraging the installation of network facilities and the provision for network services and application services to institutions and in unserved, under-served, underdeveloped areas of the country.
The NCC Act 2003 also provided for the establishment of a Universal Service Provision (USP) Board within NCC, to administer the Universal Service Provision Fund.
The first move of the USP Board was to develop a 5 year Strategic SMP in 2007 to guide the activities the USPF. The 2007-2011 SMP specified five goals for providing universal access to voice and data services across the country, and it expected the telecommunication operators and the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to drive the process of taking data and voice telephony to rural communities. The 2007-2011 SMP plan did not fly because the operating companies that were supposed to drive the process of rural telephony refused to drive it, alleging weak and unfair implementation of the entire process by the USPF.
Having realised the failure of the 2007-2011 SMP, the USPF took the whole of 2012 to re-strategise and came up with another five-year management plan that will run from 2013 to 2017, backed by renewed strategies to achieve its set goals.
Overview of 2007-2011 SMP The vision of the 2007-2011 SMP was to create telecommunications access for all Nigerians, including those in rural communities, while its mission was to achieve telecoms service universal access, universal coverage and universal service through a public-private partnership that stimulates economic and social development, private sector investment and market-based provision of basic, affordable and quality ICT infrastructure and services to unserved and under-served areas, communities and populations.
Some of its strategic goals were to facilitate an enabling environment for ICT, reduce market efficiency gap through incentives that would promote the rollout of ICT services in an unserved and under-served areas; promote universal access and universal service, by driving increasing access to community based data and voice services on a shared basis and provide a platform for universal service; promote universal coverage by making transmission infrastructure and connection available to the national backbone in all local government areas; facilitate connectivity for development; and create institutional development such as the USPF administration that is capable of meeting its challenges.
Laudable as its strategic goals were, the USP Board was unable to meet the set goals because of its many challenges, according to the board.
The Hiccups Addressing industry stakeholders at a recent forum organised by USPF, its Chairman, who doubles as the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, admitted that very little was achieved from its set goals and called for inputs from stakeholders that would help achieve better results in the new strategic management plan. The minister who was represented by the Director, Telecoms and Postal Services of the ministry, John Ayodele, assured that all industry views would be considered in the implementation of the new plan.
Highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the 2007-2011 SMP in his presentation, Joseph Tegbe of KMPG Management Consulting, said very little was achieved, and attributed the challenges that militated against its performance to wrong planning in outlining too many projects for execution at the same time as well as its inability to constantly review its activities, during the 2007-2011 Strategic Management Plan.
For instance, USPF had targeted to subsidise the installation of 490 Base Transceiver Station (BTS) also known as base stations across the six geo-political zones, in the Accelerated Mobile Phone Expansion Base Transceiver Station (AMPE-BTS), but was able to award subsidies for only 74 BTS, which represent 12 per cent of the set targets.
It also planned to rollout 109 Rural Broadband Initiative (RUBI) to facilitate the rollout of broadband services to un-served and underserved areas, but was able to rollout in only 18 of such initiative in some local government areas of the country. In the area of School Access Project (SAP), which was aimed at providing public schools with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) hardware and funding, the USPF targeted a total of 1, 858 schools across the country to provide SAP, but was able to rollout in 766 government schools, representing 41 per cent achievement of set targets.
It also targeted 374 tertiary institutions for the Tertiary Institution Access Project (TiAP), aimed at providing tertiary institutions with ICT hardware and funding subscription for broadband internet for at least one year, but the TiAP project was rolled out in 193 tertiary institutions across the country.
Minimal Achievement Although USPF was unable to meet up with most of its targets, it however tried in few areas, such as Community Communications Centre (CCC) project and the E-Library project. While it was able deploy 74 libraries across the country, it also subsidised a total of 224 CCCs across the six geo-political zones, out of a set target of 291. The CCC project provided shared access to telephone and internet services in rural areas.
In the area of Accelerated Mobile Phone Expansion (AMPE), in Collocation Infrastructure Project (CIP), the USP Board targeted 150, which were planned to subsidise the construction of shared telecoms infrastructure for co-location of telecoms operators, the USPF was able to subsidise the establishment of 104 CIPs, which represent 69 per cent of the planned target.
Key Weaknesses Giving some of the key weaknesses why the USPF could not achieve 100 per cent of its set targets in its last SMP, Tegbe said while the programmes of last SMP were well-articulated, the USPF encountered some impediments in executing a number of selected projects as a result of some challenges.
According to him, the 2007-2011 SMP appeared to have outlined too many USP programmes and projects for implementation, considering the fact that the USP Secretariat had just been established and time was required to build and strengthen the capacity of the Secretariat to implement the proposed programmes.
The projects, he also said, were deigned and defined using a 'one-size-fits-all' approach, and thus the USP interventions in some cases, did not directly address the specific needs of the beneficiaries. He explained the SMP was not regularly reviewed on a defined and periodic basis to ensure that its initiatives were aligned with current realities.
Adopting New Model Worried by the minimal achievement in the 2007-2011 strategic management plan, the USPF said it had adopted new model to deliver its goal in the new 2013-2017 strategic management plan. The goal focuses on facilitating an enabling environment for ICT, promoting universal access and universal service that will facilitate connectivity for development as well as institutional development to address people, process and programmes.
Key Changes In order to address some of the challenges encountered by the USPF in implementing the last SMP, the USPF resolved to carry out a holistic approach to project selection, engagement of stakeholders in the new SMP, quantification of maximum allowable subsidies, subsidising operational costs, and to implement a monitoring and evaluation framework.
Part of the implementation and monitoring framework will be centred on the development and implementation of robust monitoring and evaluation framework that will define the indicators that will be used to determine effectiveness of programmes and their impact on beneficiary communities.
Outlook of 2013-2017 SMP Following a one-year review that was carried out last year to assess the level of supply and demand for voice and data services across the country, with particular reference to unserved and under-served communities and groups, the USPF came up with renewed vision, mission and core values that will drive the new SMP in the next five years.
Although its mission is to facilitate the achievement of universal access to ICT and universal service, through market-based investment, which will stimulate development in rural areas, it included some core values that will enhance achieving its mission and set goals, to include integrity, collaboration, team spirit, transparency, innovation, professionalism and service excellence.
The USPF identified three strategic goals to drive the achievements of its mandate for the next five years, to include facilitating an enabling environment for ICT, promoting universal access and universal service that will facilitate connectivity for development, and institutional development.
Having drawn lessons from its failures in implementing the 2007-2011 SMP, it is expected that the USPF would get it right in its next SMP, which runs from 2013 to 2017, provided there will be inputs from telecoms operating companies as well as from the internet service providers and that their inputs would be welcomed and implemented.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Emma Okonji
Quelle/Source: AllAfrica, 15.08.2013
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