BEVERLY HILLS, December 30, (THEWILL) – Telecommunications (Telecoms) operators in Nigeria are in a fix over the hike in telecoms charges imposed recently by the federal and state government agencies.
They described the development as unhealthy and said it is impacting negatively on their plans to roll out additional networks to boost their operations and enhance service delivery.
Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, who made this disclosure recently, had expressed concerns over the development.
It said that the 36 states had agreed to reduce the Right of Way (RoW) charges to N145 per linear metre, based on the agreement earlier reached with the federal government.
Adebayo, however, expressed worry that hike in existing charges were being introduced at the same time they were implementing the decision on RoW charges.
” A number of states agreed to reverse RoW charges in their territories to the agreed N145 per linear metre.
“While they were reducing RoW charges, they were also introducing new charges and increasing some of the existing tariffs in the telecoms sector, which made a mess of their promise to reduce RoW charges,” Adebayo said.
The report further disclosed that some new charges were being introduced such as land rent for telecoms sites and annual administrative renewal fee, among others.
Similarly, other charges such as environmental impact assessment fee, licence permit fee, carbon emission fee, sanitation charges, company income tax, education tax, annual operating levy on net revenue and VAT on consumption of services, utility tax, among others, were also increased.
It further revealed that several charges that were very low initially, were suddenly increased to worsen the challenge of multiple taxes which, Adebayo said, affected additional network rollout in 2020.
Adebayo was also quoted as saying that existing charges were increased between 70 per cent and 100 per cent, depending on states, while new fees were also introduced.
The licence permit and tenement fees, which initially vary between N20,000 and N35,000, were increased to between N100,000 and N150,000 in some states and that operators were asked to be paying annually, as against the initial one-off payment.
Affected also is the Base Transceiver Station (BTS) sites fee which has also been introduced at the rate of N500,000 — aside the existing business premises charge of N250,000.
Environmental impact report fee was also introduced at the rate of between N1.5 million and N2 million, different from the usual environmental impact assessment fee of N500,000 that telecoms operators pay.
The ALTON boss explained that government agencies have resorted to using consultants in collecting the new charges and would refuse to issue permit licence when the fees are not paid, thereby slowing down the rate of network expansion in the affected states.
Adebayo advised governors and state agencies to begin to see the benefits of wide spread of telecoms infrastructure in their states, above the gains of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
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