FG, Anambra move to deploy broadband infrastructure

The Federal Government and Anambra State have agreed to work together to create an enabling environment for broadband infrastructure deployment.

In a statement by the Ministry of Communications Technology on Monday, this move will position Anambra as a smart state and will lead to accelerated roll out of critical Information Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure across the state necessary for development.

The ministry and the Broadband Council chaired by Omobola Johnson, the minister of communications technology, are promoting a “smart state” initiative geared at engaging governors and relevant authorities at the state and federal levels to address the issue of multiple taxation impeding the acceleration of the roll out of critical infrastructure across Nigeria.

According to the statement, the main aim of the smart states’ initiative is to ensure that effective measures are adopted to remove arbitrary charges and eradicate multiple taxations across the nation.

Anambra is one of the smart states selected by the Broadband Council to facilitate ICT infrastructure rollout critical for development. Other smart states selected by the Broadband Council include Bayelsa, Gombe, Katsina and Ondo. Lagos has already reduced RoW charges by 85 percent. Bayelsa has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the smart state initiative.

The agreement with Anambra will foster an enabling environment for the deployment of communications infrastructure that will lead to a reduction in the cost of network deployment and an increase in the rollout of such networks to commercial centres, underserved and rural areas by communications operators. In so doing, an enabling environment will be created that will increase broadband penetration -both fixed and mobile and increase access to such services at affordable prices for customers, creating digitally enabled urban areas called ‘smart cities’. Those states that provide such an enabling environment will be labelled ‘model states’ and afforded the utmost support in achieving these objectives.

In exchange, participating states can expect to see growth in economic activity and productivity and subsequently the positive development of the state, according to the ministry.

This initiative will cover the following: standardised fees for site building and approvals within the state, reduction in fees and possibility of waiver for Right of Way in deserving instances, implementation of a dig-once policy, promotion of collocation between operators in the state and connectivity to state institutions within 1km of the given Right of Way.

Recall that the ministry is working to ensure that the bottlenecks that mitigate service quality delivery are removed. To tackle quality of service issues in the industry, the ministry in partnership with the Ministry of Works developed new Right of Way (RoW) guidelines for Federal Government roads to enable operators have unencumbered means of laying fibre optics which is critical for infrastructure development and quality of service.

To remove arbitrary charges and eradicate multiple taxations that impede telecoms development across the nation, the ministry for the first time in the history of Nigeria’s telecoms revolution got state governors and relevant authorities at the state and federal levels to address the issue of multiple taxation and adopt measures that will remove arbitrary charges and eradicate multiple taxations to enhance service delivery across the nation.
A landmark agreement with the Lagos State government facilitated by the ministry was brokered to address issues of RoW, base station deployment etc. Cost of RoW was slashed from 3000 to 500- a reduction of 85 percent.
The ministry says it is working to replicate this in other states by convincing other state governors and relevant authorities at the state level to eliminate multiple taxations and adopt measures that will UZORremove arbitrary charges and enhance telecoms service delivery. An assessment of the deployment of ICT infrastructure revealed that almost 70 percent of deployment cost was spent on processing RoW, taxes and levies on infrastructure.
The ministry also says that the elimination of multiple taxes will result in cost effective, accelerated and massive deployment of ICT infrastructure across the country.