By Seun Ibiyemi
The House of Representatives has approved the sum of N479.5bn as the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) budget for 2026.
The approval was granted during plenary on Tuesday after the House considered the breakdown of the commission’s statutory revenue fund for the financial year ending 31 December 2026, as contained in the report of the Committee on Communications.
Committee on Communications Chairman Peter Akpatason presented the report, which outlined a total projected expenditure of N479,508,260,000.
The funds are drawn from the NCC’s internally generated revenue streams, including licensing fees, spectrum fees, annual operating levies, and other regulatory charges.
Of the total budget, N124.44bn was earmarked for recurrent expenditure to cover personnel and operational costs.
This includes N38.53bn for salaries and wages, N29.97bn for other personnel costs, N28.45bn for operational costs, N11.53bn for administrative expenses, and N7.23bn for travel-related expenses. Spectrum-related costs accounted for N6.93bn within the recurrent segment.
Capital expenditure was fixed at N26.78bn, comprising N23.39bn for internal projects and N3.39bn for consultancy services. An additional N32.01bn was allocated to special projects, such as digital infrastructure and intervention initiatives.
These initiatives include N6.92bn for emergency communications centres, N2.31bn for GSM network quality-of-service compliance monitoring, and N7.74bn for the completion of ongoing intervention projects.
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Furthermore, N10.79bn was allocated for strategic intervention programmes in schools, N2.02bn for digital skills acquisition, and N2.23bn for subscriber database management.
The breakdown also included N20bn for transfer to the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), while the sum of N276.28bn is for statutory transfer to the federal government, representing surplus revenue generated by the commission.
The NCC’s projected revenue base of N479.51bn is expected to be driven primarily by a N250bn annual operating levy and N192.89bn from spectrum fees.
Other contributors include N13.96bn from type-approval fees, N11.42bn from numbering plan charges, N8.99bn in administrative charges, and N1.49bn from licensing fees. Sundry income is projected at N750m.
