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| Mrs. Johnson, CommTech Minister |
This is coming as she disclosed
that operators wait for half a year before getting approval to deploy some 300
base stations.
Johnson made this lamentation in Lagos, recently at the ICT
Stakeholders Forum on ‘Connected for growth – Moving from planning to execution’
by her ministry’s local content unit, decrying long wait for approval before
base stations could be deployed from various government agencies.
“Operators
waiting for 6 months for approval to deploy 300 Base Stations,” she condemned.
According to her to have an all inclusive development,
Nigeria needs to connect its citizenry through provision of adequate
infrastructure to boost broadband penetration in the country in the next five
years.
“Significantly more base stations need to be deployed across
the country to meet national target of a five-fold increase in broadband
penetration by 2018,” she declared to DigitalSENSE Business News.
She also revealed that operators committed to spend at least US$6bn on infrastructure
as from 2013, however, investment are hampered by increasing incidences and
values of taxes and levies requested by States, delays in obtaining approval to
build base stations.
Johnson said
that the above figure to be invested on infrastructure includes the US$3bn
syndicate loan facility extended to major operator in the market, which seen as
the biggest financial deal in sub-Saharan Africa Communications sector.
Request, she
said, has been made for N250m Ecology Tax from operators to deploy base stations,
Corresponent/DigitalSENSE Business News
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