How communications ministry, agencies generated N1trn in 2yrs —Pantami
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Ali Ibrahim Pantami, has disclosed that the Minitry and its parastatals generated over N1trillion for the federal government in less than 2 years.
Pantami disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja when he performed virtual commissioning of eight new IT related projects located across the country.
The minister said his ministry and the agencies under it generate an average of about N44 billion every month or over N1.4 billion every day.
He explained that about N360 billion was generated from spectrum, allocated by the National Frequency Management Council (NFMC), under the Chairmanship of the Minister, to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for commercial purposes.
Pantami said over N600 billion was paid by ICT companies to the account of the federal government through the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
Furthermore, he said over N94 billion was generated for the federal government and approved by the National Assembly in line with relevant laws, as part of the 2020 appropriation for personnel, capital projects, capacity building, interventions, and so on.
The IT Projects Clearance Programme also saved over N5.5 billion for the federal government in the last two years, Pantami revealed.
The statistics and figures, the minister said, were generated from the various reports submitted by the ministry and parastatals.
Giving break down of his stewardship in office in the last two years before he performed the commissioning of the projects, Pantami said 1,667 projects and programmes had been established across the country in less than 2 years.
He said: “In addition to those already established, we have over 455 other projects and programmes that are ongoing. All these are in full alignment with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy for a Digital Nigeria.”
He said FG had so far built 24 Emergency Communication Centres, four Virtual Examination Centres, four eHealth/Data Sharing Centres, 80 Digital Awareness Programme (DAP) Centres, 74 Advance Digital Appreciation Programme for Tertiary Institutions (ADAPTI) and four Digital Industrial Parks.
Others are six ICT Innovation and Incubation Park/Hubs, 80 Digital Capacity Training Centres (DCTC), 80 E-Learning Facilities attached to DCTCs, six Community ICT Centres.
Apart from this, he said the federal government had also offered mass trainings as part of its efforts to promote a paradigm shift from the general societal focus on degrees to a strong focus on skills.