The federal government of Nigeria on Tuesday, November 5 insisted the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) must work out modalities to reduce the price of data in the interest of Nigerians.
This was the position of the minister of communications and digital economy, Dr Isa Ali Pantami.
Pantami said his office has been inundated with complaints from concerned Nigerians about the high cost of data by telecoms operators. He mandated the management of the NCC led by its board chairman, Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye, to work out the modalities with other stakeholders in the industry to address the complaints as soon as possible.
Senator Durojaiye had led members of the board on a courtesy visit to the minister.
“I am urging the management of NCC to work towards reducing the price of data in Nigeria. It is too costly and people are complaining every day,” The Nation quoted the minister as saying.
Last month, the minister had directed the NCC to bring to stem the tide of illegal deduction of the data of subscribers and work towards the downward review of the cost.
In a related development, the federal government recently the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to develop DNA replication and encoding laboratories to help in the detection and prosecution of criminals in the country.
The minister of state, science and technology, Mr. Mohammed Abdullahi, said this at the 2019 National Identity Day organised by NIMC on Monday, September 16.
He stressed the need for NIMC to look into the possibility of strategic partnerships with other government agencies to ensure new innovations are introduced to help in combating crime in the country.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has released the main features of the country's new currency effectively re-designated in June but having had its place held by the surrogate bond notes indicating the only major difference will be the removal of the words "bond note".
The new currency is due this month according to RBZ Governor John Mangudya.
According to RBZ's Statutory Instrument 231 of 2019, the two dollar note will maintain a green colour and a dominant feature of Parliament on one side and balancing rocks on the other, similar to its two bond note.
The five dollar note will also maintain its purple colour, a dominant feature of the three giraffes and three palm trees.
"There shall be issued, in terms of the Act a two dollar banknote and a five dollar banknote.
"On the front side of both the two dollar note and the five dollar note the dominant feature shall be the logo of the RBZ (three balancing rocks) with the visually impaired recognition feature to the left, latent image showing the denomination, optical variable ink with colour shift from gold to green, security thread with the inscription 'RBZ' and see through of the Zimbabwe bird looking to the left in perfect register," the Apex Bank said in the Government Gazette.
"In respect of the two dollar note, on the back side there shall be an impression of the Parliament of Zimbabwe Building and the Eternal Flame. In respect of the five dollar note, on the back side there shall be an impression of three giraffes and three palm trees."
Mangudya announced last week that the RBZ will be introducing the new notes as a way of dealing with cash shortages as well as bringing the currency reforms to finality.
The Zimbabwe dollar makes a return 10 years after it imploded out of circulation as the country's economy took a hit from a combination of bad policies and especially the effects of the land reform programme as well as political bickering.
Credit: New Zimbabwe
A Boeing 777 bound for Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and with 488 people on board, has made an emergency landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
Sputnik quoting media reports, said the pilots had to land the plane due to an oil leak, discovered in one of the aircraft’s engines.
“Aircraft flight No. 7571 Moscow – Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) made a safe landing at Sheremetyevo Airport. The plane had problems with an engine”, a source told the Russian media.
According to a representative of the Russian emergency services, the oil pressure sensor in one of the engines went off shortly after takeoff. Per preliminary data, 488 people were on board the aircraft.
On Monday, a Boeing 737 aircraft from Frankfurt also landed on the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow after a hydraulic system sensor showed a malfunction in the system.
National telecommunications operator, Globacom, has emerged the preferred network for 2 million new subscribers in Nigeria in September, the largest in the industry, according to latest statistics released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
In the report for September 2019, Globacom added a record 1,945,846 new subscribers. With the addition, the company’s subscriber base leapt from 47,265,628 in August to 49,211,474, the second-largest customer base in the industry.
Airtel which had briefly occupied the second position in the industry now has a subscriber base of 48,909,678 at the end of September, after adding 987,787 new customers, representing 50% of Globacom’s new addition within the period under review. Its figure at the end of the preceding month of August was 47,921,891. It is now the third-largest operator in the country.
The NCC statistics showed that it was only Globacom and Airtel that added new subscribers to their networks, as MTN and 9mobile recorded a decline in active subscriptions for the month.
According to telecom industry sources, Globacom’s record performance in September was buoyed by improved service delivery following the continuous upgrade of its infrastructure.
Although MTN remained the largest mobile operator in Nigeria, it lost 379,795 subscribers in the month under review. This brought its total subscriptions down to 65,328,104 from the 65,707,899 it recorded in August.
The fourth mobile operator, 9mobile, lost 268,159 subscribers in September, going down from 15,602,255 in August to 15,334,096 in September.
According to the industry regulator, the number of active mobile users in the country rose from 176.6 million recorded in August to 178.9 million in September.
With this, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also increased to 93.8 per cent.