Nigerian Telecomms Industry Contributes N15trn to Economy
The Nigerian telecommunication industry has contributed about N15 trillion to the country’s economy.
Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umaru Danbatta, said that the sector has contributed to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since the liberation of the sector and inception of digital mobile communications nearly 17 years ago.
Danbatta stated that there has been an increase between N1.4 trillion to N1.5 trillion on a consistent basis in the last one and half years.
According to him, the sector also contributed about nine per cent to the GDP in the first quarter of 2017, stressing that the sector was able to perform credibly well because of sound regulation, provision of level playing field for all players which has continued to attract both local and foreign investments.
Speaking on the remaining eight slots of the 2.6 GHz spectrum, whose first auction took place last year June, Danbatta said the regulator would soon announce new winners of the spectrum as it is nearing the conclusion of a process that would see to the sale of the remaining slots.
He said that after MTN Nigeria paid $96 million for the six slots of the 2.6GHz spectrum, the commission embarked on a post-mortem to find out why other mobile network operators (MNOs) did not effectively participate in the auction.
“We discovered that the reserve price per slot was on the side. Among the recommendations is that whenever we are conducting another sale for the remaining slots of the spectrum, the slots would be sold at the old exchange rate that prevailed during the first auction. In that way, we would cushion the effects of the foreign exchange on the operators. That means, if it was sold at N200 per dollar, the same rate would be used for the remaining 2.6GHz spectrum auction’’, he said.
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