The Federal Government says it is interested in a 20 per cent increase in the contribution of the information communication technology (ICT) sector to its economic diversification agenda.
Minister of Communications Technology Adebayo Shittu, who spoke during the Institute of Directors’ (IoD’s) new members’ induction as Special Guest of Honour/Guest Speaker at Eko Hotel and Suites, said to actualise this ambitious dream, a new roadmap had been drafted with substantial inputs from stakeholders in the sector. The document is awaiting the blessing of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
Represented by the Permanent Secretary, Communications Technology Ministry, Sunday Echono, at the event held at weekend, the minister said all the challenges, including multiple taxation/ regulation, right of way (RoW), alternative energy sources to power base transmission stations (BTS), and even upgrade of the legal and regulatory frameworks were being fine-tuned so as create a congenial operating environment to attract further foreign direct investments (FDIs).
Shittu, who lamented that the existence of indigenous skills gap, quality of service, cut-throat competition, and silo approach to e-government implementation promised that the document pending in the FEC would address some of these challenges.
He said globally, big data, cloud and internet of things (IoTs) are three major factors dominating the table. For Nigeria to take advantage of these new trends, he said the Federal Government has directed the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to advertise spectrum sale to the remaining five infrastructure companies (Infracos) to complement existing optic fibre cables to deepen broadband penetration in line with the National Broadband Plan of the Federal Government.
According to Shittu, business process outsourcing (BPO), which yearly contributes substantially to the GDP of a country, such as India could be developed in the country so that Nigeria could become the sub-regional hub for BPO and earn foreign exchange too.
