Nigeria - US$1 billion needed each year for infrastructure

Nigeria: Telecoms Infrastructure to Gulp U.S. $10 Billion

An estimated $10 billion will be needed for the provisionof key infrastructure in the telecommunications industry over the next ten years.

Operators in the sector stated this yesterday at an interactive session with the House of Representatives Committee on Communication.

The operators blamed the prevalence of poor services in the industry on the energy and security challenges facing the country, stressing that epileptic power supply had been a major drawback on their investments in Nigeria.

In his presentation, Director, Regulatory Affairs, Zain Telecommunications Limited, Mr. Osondu Nwokoro, disclosed that over $6 billion had been invested in the countryby various service providers over the past five years.

He explained that the telecommunications industry in Nigeria had about 12,000 base stations compared with the United Kingdom[UK] which has about 35,000 base stations.

"The major problems confronting the nation's telecomsindustry include multiple taxation, high import duties, insecurity and power outage.

We are trying to be proactive ahead of the regulator by addressing major challenges such as drop calls and provision of infrastructure," Osundu said.Other operators including Globacom, MTN, Etisalat and Visafone also expressed concern over the inadequate infrastructure in the country, blaming high cost of tariff on the erratic power supply and inadequate of security for the infrastructure provided by theoperators.