The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has reiterated its plea to the telecommunications industry regulators to consider increasing call tariffs.
The President, ATCON, Mr Tony Emoekpere, made the plea in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on New Year’s Day.
ATCON is a professional, non-profit, non-political umbrella organisation of telecommunications companies in Nigeria.
Emoekpere said that the minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy and the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) should take the call for tariff increase seriously, because the sector was a value chain business.
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He urged that the decision to increase tariffs should be at least in the first quarter of 2025, adding that there should be some clarification as regards to what the plan on tariff should be.
The ATCON boss stressed that there was no official communique by the Nigeria Communications Commission on increase in tariffs, but noted that at some point a plan to harmonise tariffs had been mentioned.
Emoekpere said that tariffs, being the way they were was a big challenge to the industry.
He explained that tariffs were supposed to enable operators and everybody in the industry to generate enough revenue to sustain their business operations.
“Like I have said before, revenue being generated is not enough to support the ongoing operations of most of the telcos and the infrastructure providers as well.
“So, the earlier a firm decision is made on this issue, the better for the industry.
“Nigeria does not have a stagnant population; the population is growing every day. More and more people are coming to the bracket where they need operators’ services,’’ he said.
The ATCON boss added that, as population increased, there would be increasing demand for products, and businesses would also increase their demand and investments.
He said that, however, if businesses could not charge a reasonable amount to enable them put the lights on, talk less of even making a profit, it would affect them negatively.
“So, we call upon the Ministry of Communication and the regulators to look into this matter and take a firm decision, at least by the first quarter of 2025,’’ he said.
Emoekpere stressed that the issue may look mundane, but if it was not managed properly, it would have an adverse effect.
“Already, people are complaining about quality of service and things like that.
“The big challenge is that as things stand, due to the current revenue depreciation so to speak especially on dollar terms, there is no way it is not going to have an adverse effect on quality of service.
“It will also have an adverse effect on service and status of the infrastructure, because there will be no incentive to invest,” the ATCON boss explained.
According to him, 2025 is going to be a big challenge because the current climate in the industry is not encouraging any form of investment in terms of expansion.
Emoekpere wondered how operators were expected to make more investments, if they could not generate enough revenue to sustain their current operations.NAN
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