Leading investor and serial industry entrepreneur in Nigeria has hinted that “Unless all the state governments’ see reason and align with Federal Government’s N145 fee for Right of Way (RoW) or a little bit within the margin, no single telecom Infrastructure Company (InfraCo) can raise a dime for laying of optic fibre cable in this country”.
This was the assertion of the industry expert that pleaded anonymity in an exclusive telephone interview in Lagos weekend.
The investor recalled that “Am aware that several bodies had made all sort of frantic efforts to get governors and relevant states’ agencies to align, states’ have continue to see anything telecom as cash cow which is wrong.
Business Hilights recalls that last week, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta had played host to Swedish Ambassador of Sweden to Nigeria, Mr Carl Grans, at the NCC headquarters in Abuja.
During their discussion, Danbatta informed him that as part of drive to fast track broadband penetration and infrastructure development, the agency had earmarked about N65bn counterpart funding to about N200bn to be raised by InfraCos for the delivery of key infrastructures that will drive last mile and nationwide coverage.
He told Grans that the project is to cut across the 36 states, the Federal Capital Territory and the 774 local government councils in the country even as payment would be made to the InfraCos handling the projects upon attainment of milestones set for the individual companies.
However, NCC did not give further details on percentage allocation to be received by each of the seven InfraCos.
