By Emmanuel Elebeke, Abuja

The National Assembly has set up an adhoc committee to look into the prevailing challenges militating growth and development of the nation’s Telecommunications sector.

This is as 7,000 telecoms masts face demolition by the aviation authorities.

The Chairman, House Committee on Telecommunications, Hon. Peter Akpatason, announced this on Friday during a courtesy visit to the Committee by the new executive of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, ATCON in Abuja.

He said the committee’s terms of reference would be to look into the myriads of challenges militating the growth of the nation’s Telecommunications sector, dissect them and come up with broad-spectrum solutions that would lay the challenges to rest for the benefit of the economy and the growing youth population yearning for job opportunities.

He applauded ATCON for its immense contribution to the nation’s economy in terms of 18% contribution to GDP and job Creation as well as other ripple effects of their services on other sectors of the economy.

Akpatason said, ” This Committee recognises the role of the telecoms sector in driving growth and Innovation, contributing 18% to the GDP. 

We stand ready for necessary  legislative  interventions in line with our goal of strengthening the existing relationship between the various stakeholders in the industry.”

In addition to the promise made, the House Committee Chairman assured that his committee would convoke a Stakeholders forum aimed at addressing all the multi-sectorial challenges bedeviling the telecom sector in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

The idea, he said is to tackle issues ranging from insecurity, multiple taxation, Right of Way, lack of access to funding, as well as erasing all bottlenecks constituting a clog in the wheel of progress of the sector.

To demonstrate the importance attached to the Committee, he said that the committee would be chaired by the Vice Chairman of the Committee, Dr. Midala Usman Balami and consult all relevant stakeholders to make inputs in its proceedings.

Earlier, the President of ATCON, Tony Emokpere informed the house that they came into the strategic meeting to seek support in addressing the mounting challenges encumbering the the growth of the telecoms sector of the economy.

He said ATCON felt that the intervention of the House became imperative given the fact that the performance of the sector impact largely on the activities and performance of other sectors of the economy, hence the need for their legislative intervention.