FG tags telecoms facilities critical infrastructure soon as sector’s FDI hits $60bn in 17 years
Finishing touches are being given to the move by the Ministry of Communications to declare telecommunications facilities across the country as critical national infrastructure.
This was revealed by the Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, at the presentation of the Board of Commissioners of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Abuja recently.
The minister further revealed that the declaration has become unavoidable considering the rising threat faced by the infrastructures’ nationwide and the huge contributions of the sector to the economy in the last 17 years of entry.
He said he telecommunications sector had attracted $60bn investment since the introduction of digital mobile services in the country in 2001.
The minister said a memo for the declaration of telecommunications facilities as critical national infrastructure was ready to be presented to the Federal Executive Council before the end of March.
According to him, the declaration will likely see more resources going in for the protection of telecommunications facilities, which are often vandalised, which leads to some subscribers to be denied of telecommunications services, while others are subjected to poor quality of services.
Shittu said, “I believe it will happen within the next two weeks. We have a memo to the Federal Executive Council in that regard, whose approval has been delayed due to certain circumstances beyond our control.
“The bottleneck has now been removed and the memo will soon be presented to the Federal Executive Council. In two weeks or three weeks, we will have approval of the Federal Executive Council and once it is approved, we will go on to the implementation stage.”
