Nigeria gets N33tr from telcos as FX, others pose fresh threat

GSMA projects extra N1.6tr tax revenue, 15m subscribers

AMID insecurity, foreign exchange crisis, Naira depreciation and undue political interference, the telecommunications sector contributed N33 trillion to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product ( GDP) in 2023, with N2.4 trillion in tax revenue.

The industry is also projecting an additional N1.6 trillion in tax revenue and 15 million Internet users if prevailing challenges are addressed. Despite the projected 13.5 per cent contribution to the GDP, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani and leading telecommunications companies, including MTN, Airtel and Globalcom, who gathered yesterday in Abuja at GSMA - Nigeria Digital Economy Report presentation, sought closer collaboration for the nation to lead mobile technologies for the African continent.

For this to happen, the industry players demanded urgent action on the high cost of energy and inflation, while checkmating currency devaluation, which has left most of them in losses.

Coming at a time that the government is seeking to increase Value Added Tax ( VAT) and introduce a cybercrime levy, the stakeholders insisted that Nigeria remained one of the countries with the highest taxes on the telecommunications sector, adding that the development would impact its digital and financial inclusion.

Also raising concerns over rising insecurity and the issue of the right of way, the stakeholders noted that telecoms infrastructure’s damage caused by construction works, vandalism and theft was impacting deployment, quality of services and coverage as well as increasing duplicative costs.

The financial performance of the mobile telecommunications industry, going by the outcome of the industry report, has slowed down in recent years after a long period of sustained growth, with limited capacity to support the capital- intensive nature of the business.