Nigeria Hands Over WATRA Chairmanship To Guinea
Nigeria has handed over the mantle of leadership of the West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA) for a one-year chairmanship to the Republic of Guinea.
Prof. Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), who served Nigeria’s tenure as Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria’s national telecommunications regulatory authority, handed over to the newly elected Chairman of the Assembly, Sekou Oumar Barry, of the Republicluc of Guinea.
The hand over ceremony was one of the major highlights of the recently-concluded 19th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of WATpublic of Guinea. The AGM equally approved WATRA’s new Strategic Management Plan (SMP) 2022-2024.
Barry, the new chairman, who would preside over the affairs of the Executive Council of WATRA for one- year, is director-General of the Telecommunication and Posts Regulatory Authority (ARPT) of the Republic of Guinea. The Assembly also elected the representatives of Mali and Sierra-Leone as 1st and 2nd Vice-Chairmen, respectively.
In his address, Danbatta acknowledged the critical role WATRA has been playing in creating policy, legal and regulatory frameworks for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the sub-region since the mid-1990s and commended the synergy among member states, which he noted has continued to provide an economdefencense for member countries against global shocks, especially the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Nigeria, Danbatta said ICT currently contributes 17 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) wian the ambitious target of percent contribution over the next three years, stating that if one big regional market in which ICT policies and regulations are aligned is created, WATRA members can drive ICT investment and growth faster in their respective countries and collectively in the sub-region.
The EVC said he had worked closely with the Executive Secretary of WATRA, Aliu Aboki, and his team in the last 12 months to achieve a lot in WATRA’s internal governance and processes to make it more efficient and transparent. The EVC thanked the Executive Secretary and his team for the energy they had pursued the re-positioning task. He commended the Executive Committee for the clarity of purpose with which they have spelt out these priorities.
Danbatta said some of his achievements as WATRA Chairman include the delivery of a draft four-year strategic plan in line with the 18th AGM resolution, partial payment of long-outstanding membership dues by some member states after long periods of inactivity, deployment of the new WATRA automated Asset Management System, successful organization of various high-quality capacity building programs for members, optimization of WATRA accounting, finance, and budgeting process, as well as the institution of procedures for improved accountability, marked by the weekly financial dashboard.
The achievements recorded under Danbatta’s one-year chairmanship also include the deployment an of automatic external phone answer and routing system, completion of front-end and back-end development of the redesigned WATRA website, joint action by WATRA, the Coordination Team, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission of a new organizational framework for roaming regulation implementation, reactivation of Niger participation in ECOWAS roaming regulation implementation through WATRA-ECOWAS Commission collaboration there’s achievements of WATRA under Danbatta’s leadership include de re-translation of WATRA constitution drafted and under review by the Executive Committee, renewed engagements with ECOWAS on World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC) 2023 collaboration, joint conduct of the 2nd WRC2023 prep meeting, a successful organization the of 2-day techni, cal physical meeting in Abuja on fraud and roaming tariffs for ECOWAS regional roaming in collaboration with ECOWAS Commission, the kick-off of Digital Transformation of WATRA Operations and WATRA Operating Model review service being part of a $300,000 grant from the Nigerian government through NCC, Nigeria.
While congratulating Barry as the new WATRA Chairman, Danbatta expressed the conviction that the new leadership would build on the modest achievements of the last year. “When members see the unique role that WATRA plays in easing the task of national regulators to adopt or fine-tune regulations through mutual learning and capacity building, they see more reason to engage and be active within WATRA. So, if we build on the modest achievements of the Assembly, the benefits will be with the region for decades,” he said.