. 242 organisations yet to renew licences since last year
The ministry disclosed this in Lagos, during a stakeholders’ forum on sustainable frequency spectrum management development for non-commercial radio frequency users. “Although the ministry has monitoring equipment to monitor those using the radio frequency spectrum illegally, the range of coverage is limited and cannot reach inside the forest and deep territorial waters.
Radio frequency spectrum is a specific range of frequencies of electromagnetic energy that is utilised to communicate. Its applications are important for society such as radio and television broadcasting, civil aviation, satellite, defence and emergency services depending on specific allocation of radio frequency. The Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, in line with its mandate, is saddled with the responsibility of managing Radio Frequency Spectrum for non-commercial users.
According to Pantami, out of 300 frequencies that were monitored recently by the ministry, 106 of them were not licensed, therefore defrauding the government of huge sums of money. Pantami added that within the last five years, a total number of 32 organisations have failed to pay their frequency assignment fees, adding that there are several cases of under declaration of number of radio stations and that the organisations, whose waivers were withdrawn and were asked to regularise their operations, are yet to comply with the directive, two years after.