By Nse Anthony-Uko
ABUJA, (Sundiata Post) — The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta, has urged the FCT Administration to look into the challenges facing the ICT sector in Abuja, with the bid to resolving them so that the sector can fast track its activities.
Danbatta, said this when he paid a courtesy visit to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Mohammed Musa Bello, at his office in Abuja.
According to him, said the sector was facing some challenges like lack of collocation guidelines, increase in fees for building permits, retrospective FCTA laws, activities of road construction, delayed approval for installation of base stations/ fibre deployments etc in the FCT.
The NCC boss also revealed that the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector currently contributes N1.6 trillion to the Gross Domestic Product quarterly.
The NCC boss noted that the ICT sector was now contributing close to 10 per cent to the GDP annually, adding that the country has also recorded an increase in internet users which was at 92 million as at June.
He further stated that the Nigeria is expected to hit it’s 2018 30 per cent broadband penetration which would further increase the number of internet users in the country.
“Telecommunications has attracted more than $68billion in private sector investment since 2001”, he said.
In his response, the FCT minister promised that the capital city’s administration would collaborate with the NCC to overcome those challenges.
According to him, “part of our job is to ease businesses and increase investment in the city and the country at large. We would support you in ensuring there is always increase in broadband penetration across the country.”
The minister also said the government was working day and night to make Abuja a smart city, where almost everything be automated.
He also revealed that henceforth telecom operators would be charged based on data traffic to their networks as regards their ducts across Abuja.