The Federal Executive Council has given approval for the Revenue Assurance Solution project through the Design, Finance, Build, Operate and Transfer public-private partnership model.
RAS, which was designed by the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission and the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, seeks to improve the collation and collection of Annual Operating Levy from network operators
With the approval by FEC and a requisite vetting by the Federal Ministry of Justice, the next stage will be the commercial close-contract execution, with Messrs 3R Consortium as the private partner.
The approval was contained in a statement released on Thursday by the Acting Head Media & Publicity of Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, Manji Yarling.
The statement was titled, “FG approves Revenue Assurance Solution Project: To generate N1.2trn in 10 years”
It stated that the RAS project will span a 10-year period and is expected to increase the revenue accruals from AOL to the tune of N1.2tn within the period.
The statement read in part, “The RAS is expected to block possible gaps in revenue accountability, using cutting-edge technology solutions and shall provide additional layer of assurance that the licensees of the Commission pay the correct Annual Operating Levies and meet other regulatory obligations without any miscalculations and/or exemptions based on faulty and inaccurate data and information”.
“The deployment of the RAS platform will significantly improve the NCC’s current AOL revenue computation and collection system, amongst other benefits’’, the statement read.
“The AOL regulations which came into force via a 2014 gazette by the Federal Government, as an addendum to the NCC Act of 2003, stipulates in part that: “Every licensee that is a network operator shall pay to the commission an Annual Operating Levy assessed at two and a half per cent of the Licensee’s Net Revenue for the relevant period being its gross revenue less its roaming, interconnect and bandwidth costs for the period”.
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