NCC, NLRC sign MoU to regulate lotteries hosted by telcos

The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) to improve the operations of lottery services.

The commissions are seeking to ensure that the telecommunications operators have the capacity to provide credible lottery services.

Umar Danbatta, executive vice-chairman of the NCC, explained that the hosting of lotteries by telecommunications operators may degrade their quality of service which is a reason why his commission is working to ensure that they have the capacity to do so.

Danbatta said the MoU provides empowerment to the Nigerian consumer.

“We have just signed a revised memorandum of understanding between the lottery commission and the Nigeria Communications Commission. The signing of this important document rhymes with an important item of our eight-point agenda on strategic collaboration and we are giving life to that item of our eight-point agenda,” he said.

“The idea is to cooperate to provide the environment – facilities so to speak for the lottery commission to host. Bringing any additional service on the infrastructure adds additional burden to the networks and may degrade quality of service.

“That is why the NCC has to be involved to ensure that the operators who will be hosting the lottery services have the capacity to do so. The lottery commission will ensure the credibility of the process to ensure that the prices promised those who are participating are given to them.

“Whatever accrues from this, there is a sharing formula – some of the proceeds will go to charity, there will be tax benefits to government. So it is a win-win situation. This will bring empowerment to the Nigerian consumer.”

On his part, Lanre Gbajabiamila, director-general of the lottery commission, said the MoU would improve the accountability of lottery in the country.

“We needed to have this MoU done, having met with the NCC and with the industry is right now, the channels are different, we can see that it has advanced to telecoms where service providers use the telecommunications platforms to do lottery and gaming, so hence we needed to have this collaboration and MoU signed to improve the processing and accountability of the industry,” Gbajabiamila said.