FG: New investors to enjoy 30 % reduction in tax

The Federal Government has said new telecom and ICT investors will get 30 percent reduction in company and income tax payment when they stake their investments.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Professor Umar Garba Danbatta said this yesterday at the ongoing ITU Telecom World 2018 in Durban, South Africa.

The 30 per cent reduction in payment of company and income tax for new investors is expected to attract more investments to the country, Prof Danbatta said, adding this will also increase the country’s Foreign Direct Investment [FDI] in the telecom sector.

The FDI in the telecom sector presently stands at $70bn, but the NCC boss said this might have increased as all the investment in 2018 have not been calculated.

He said with a population of more than 180m, and active subscriber base of over 160m and internet penetration of over 100m, “Nigeria remains an attractive country for investors who crave for adequate Return on Investments (RoIs).”

He said the NCC has put in place incentives for Infrastructure Companies (Infracos) in order to encourage speedy deployment of infrastructure that will deepen broadband penetration as quickly as possible.

“So far, six Infraco licences have been issued to cover Lagos, North East, North West, South South, South West and South East zones of the Country. Arrangements are underway to re-licence the North Central zone,” he said.

He said NCC had earlier assigned 2.3GHz licence to Bitflux Consortium and six of the 14 slots available on 2.6GHz to MTN Nigeria and two slots to Openskys, adding that six slots are still available for assignment.