110 million Nigerians may not be able to afford internet data if…
According to official figures, about 110 million Nigerians live in poverty.
If the Federal Government gets its way with a bill presently before the National Assembly, these Nigerians will be unable to afford basic broadband.
The Communication Service Tax bill, if passed, will allow the FG to collect 9% more from Nigerians for every communication service they use in a month.
That means N10,000 worth of mobile data will increase to at least N10,900.
But it doesn’t stop at that.
The charge will also be placed on usage of Voice Calls, SMS, MMS, Pay per View TV stations amongst other electronic services.
This has raised eyebrows from many quarters considering prevalent economic conditions which has led to increase in the prices of major commodities while workers’ salaries remain untouched.
The Organised Private Sector believes the move will worsen prevailing high cost of doing business in the country.
The operators under the telecommunications arm of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) said the bill will reduce consumer purchasing power which will, in turn, affect the attractiveness of the sector to prospective investors.
LCCI president, Nike Akande, while acknowledging the government’s need to diversify its revenue base stressed that the private sector players would like to see an investment friendly tax environment, especially in the light of the prevailing high cost of doing business in the country.
But the government sees it from a different angle.
Communications Technology minister, Adebayo Shittu, said the bill was attractive because it would help the government in its bid to diversify its revenue base by raising an additional N240 billion a year.
“Our appetite as a government to increase revenue makes this bill worthy of our consideration,” he said at a private sector dialogue session on the proposed bill in Lagos, Wednesday.
“I have been reliably informed that the projected earnings from this effort is over N20 billion every month, which is an attraction to the government in funding our budget deficits,” he added.
He added that proceeds from the additional tax would help the government meet its mandate to get 30 percent broadband penetration by 2018.
“In spite of the huge investment by the government and industry operators, Nigeria has achieved only 10 per cent broadband penetration at the moment.
“If we are to catch up with lost ground and meet up with the expectations of the global community in the area of affordable broadband service, we have to incentivize the populace by helping to aid access to low cost data service subscription.” he said..
