Telecom companies lament multiple taxes, fiber cuts, other issues

Mobile Network Operators have appealed to the Federal Government for help in resolving the country’s telecommunications problems.

Multiple taxation, fiber cuts, unstable power, supply, foreign exchange scarcity, theft of telecoms equipment, and insecurity, according to them, are among the challenges.

Read Also:  Uche Nwosu: HURIWA takes PSC to court over church invasion

During a weeklong exercise in Lagos, a delegation of the Nigerian Communications Commission’s top management, led by its Executive Commission, Stakeholder Management, Adeleke Adewolu, visited the headquarters of MNOs to inspect their technical infrastructure and other facilities.
A statement by the NCC’s Director, Public Affairs, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, on Friday, said the essence of the visits was to get first-hand information about MNOs’ operations and verify challenges they might be dealing with in order to make recommendations to appropriate stakeholders towards addressing them.

It said the inspection was part of the NCC’s efforts to ensure operational efficiency and improvement in the regulatory framework in achieving the objectives of the national digital economy and other policy initiatives of the Federal Government.

Read Also:  Inauguration of 7-man judicial panel illegal, Aliyu Gusau, Zamfara PDP Legal Adviser

The commission visited Airtel, 9Mobile, Globacom, MTN and Spetranet, according to the statement.
“MNOs listed areas where increased and more decisive interventions are needed from the commission to include the issues of wilful and inadvertent fibre cuts; theft of telecoms equipment; non-availability and inadequacy of, as well as unstable power supply; multiple taxation and regulations across all the three tiers of government; damages caused undersea cables by marine transportation systems; scarcity and difficulty in accessing foreign exchange; as well as insecurity which has impeded network rollout, especially in some parts of the country,” it said.