By Emmanuel Elebeke

The proposed telecommunications tax bill, which requires that consumers be levied for telecommunications services, has been met with much controversy. However, Minister of Communications, Barr. Adebayo Shittu has said that the bill is instrumental in revamping ailing telecoms infrastructure in the country.

Shittu said this at the 4th  Regular Meeting of the National Council on Communications Technology, NCCT-04, held in Abuja recently where participants endorsed the country’s ICT Roadmap 2016-2019 as well as the national ICT Strategic Plan 2016 -2024 for implementation.

The minister who expressed his support for the bill, insisted that government needs support tax to help reduce the high cost of running business by the service providers.

Adebayo Shittu, Minister of Communication

Legislative initiative

“It was a legislative initiative and we all know that the National Assembly has the right to pass laws that they deem fit to have in Nigeria. When the bill came, our position was in the middle, trying to balance the interest of the National Assembly against the interest of the Nigerian people. I do not think, there has been much progress about it.

“If we want development, we must have taxes. In telecom industry, there are lots of problems operators are going through. An average telecom company needs N40 million to build a base station. Then, he buys 100KVA generator, purchases diesel to run it. “They are not supposed to provide electricity for themselves. It is the business of government.

So, we have come on board to fix it. This is a government Nigerians can entrust their common wealth to and go and sleep.   If   there are some guarantees that government will fix electricity, that will consequently lead to improvements in their services of the GSM companies but if it is the other way round, the infrastructure will continue to deteriorate and Nigerians will complain more.”

In its 15 point communiqué at the end of the conference, the meeting which had in attendance the Governor of Kaduna state, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, among other stakeholders, urged the Federal Government to ensure strict compliance and full implementation of the roadmap and strategic plan to help the nation to achieve true economic diversification.

The meeting restated the importance of ICT in diversifying the economy, noting that ICT remains the only escape route for Nigeria to get out of the current recession, and also called on both state and federal governments  to purchase satellite bandwidth requirement from NigComSat limited and discourage the attendant capital flight.

The meeting which acknowledged Postal infrastructure as a vehicle for attainment of sustainable development in Nigeria further called for the creation of StatesComputer Emergency Response teams as measures to mitigate cyber security threats in the country.

Also, the meeting demanded that State Governments should key in and replicate the Federal Government’s model  hosted by GBB for shared services as a means of leveraging the economies of scale and reducing the cost of Governance.

According to them, creation of innovation hubs and ICT centres are essential to accelerate the diversification of the Nigerian economy. The summit encouraged members from the different states to adopt the implementation of the digital jobs initiative in their respective domains as a means of leveraging the opportunities for alternative income presented to Nigerian youths across the country, urging government all levels to set up digital centres as a means of promoting ICT capacity building in the country.

Participants at the conference recommended digital literacy as a minimum requirement for employment and promotion in the Public Service and for implementation to be done in phases. It advised government at all levels to not only digitize their records but also adopt only Nigerian software in the process in compliance with the provisions of the guidelines for Nigerian content in ICT.

The summiteers reiterated the call for State Governments to establish   State Information Technology Development Agencies, SITDA   and further recommended that the implementation of CCTV projects on highways must be used for traffic management.

Reacting to a question on the controversial Communication Tax bill, the  proposed tax bill for Communication service consumers urged those against it to have a rethink as it would enable government raise more funds for infrastructure development.

On the call for NCC and NBC merger, the minister said it was a welcome development but noted that federal government would do the needful after the completion of the digitization process in June 2017.