Danbatta handed over to the newly elected
Chairman of the Assembly, Sekou Oumar Barry, in Conakry.
He said, “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.
“As I hand over to the incoming Chairman,
please be assured of my continued support and that of the Nigerian
Communications Commission and, indeed, the Government of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria to WATRA.”
The handover ceremony took place during the
recently-concluded 19th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of WATRA.
The AGM also approved WATRA’s new Strategic
Management Plan (SMP) 2022-2024.
Barry will preside over the affairs of the
Executive Council of WATRA for the next one year.
Prior to his new role, he was the
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 Chairman
respectively, the NCC said in a statement.
Danbatta said in his farewell address that
the WATRA has been vital in creating policy and legal and regulatory frameworks
for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the sub-region since the
mid-1990s.
The EVC said Nigeria’s ICT currently
contributes 17 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and is
projected to add 20 per cent contribution over the next three years.
According to him, 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 West Africa.
The outgoing WATRA boss said he had
partnered with the Executive Secretary of WATRA, Aliu Aboki, and his team in
the last 12 months to achieve a lot in the re-organisation of WATRA’s internal
governance and processes to make them more efficient and transparent.
The EVC listed some of his achievements to
include, “the delivery of draft four-year strategic plan in line with 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 institution of procedures for
improved accountability, marked by weekly financial dashboard.
“The deployment of automatic external phone
answer and routing system, completion of front-end and back-end development of
the redesigned WATRA website, joint development 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.
“Re-translation of WATRA constitution
drafted and under review by Executive Committee, renewed engagements with
ECOWAS on World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC) 2023 collaboration, joint
conduct of the 2nd WRC2023 prep meeting, successful organisation of 2-day
technical physical meeting in Abuja on fraud and roaming tariffs for ECOWAS
regional roaming in collaboration with ECOWAS Commission, 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.
The 19th AGM was attended by the
following14 of the 16 WATRA member states: Togo, Sierra Leone, Senegal,
Nigeria, Niger Republic, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Republic of Guinea,
The Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cape Verde, Burkina Faso and Benin Republic. Ghana
and Liberia were absent at the meeting.
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