The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has declared that Nigerians may soon have to pay higher tariffs for telecom services.
According to the chairman of the association, Engr. Gbenga Adebayo who made this known, the planned increase is as a result of the high cost of diesel in the country and other business challenges.
He said that except there is an urgent intervention by the government, members of the union will have no choice but to increase tariffs to remain in business.
Engineer Adebayo also lamented the rising insecurity in many parts of the country which he pointed out has hampered many business operations of ALTON members as there is increased fear about the safety of personnel deployed for some services in some parts of the country.
He made the stand of the ALTON members known in an interview with The Cable on Thursday night about the state of the country’s telecommunications sector.
“We will continue to provide services but we are concerned about the high costs. Without government intervention, we may consider increasing tariffs to reflect current realities,” Adebayo said.
“We can’t just wake up and increase prices. There are regulatory procedures that we need to follow to review prices. We may consider following those steps to commence the process of price review.”
On the tax issue face-off between the Kogi State government through the Kogi State Internal Revenue Service (KIRS) and telecoms operators, the ALTON boss said the government is making unsubstantiated claims against members of the union and has gone ahead to obtain an ex parte order to back up its actions.
He said the situation may develop into a service blackout which may not only affect Kogi State but some parts of Abuja, Nassarawa, Benue, Enugu, Anambra, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara, and Niger.
According to him, affected telcos are unable to refuel their generators due to government activities.
“This issue is likely to lead to a total communications blackout in the entire Kogi state, parts of Abuja and possibly impact on service availability in some parts of the following states: Nassarawa, Benue, Enugu, Anambra, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara, and Niger. These are states sharing borders with Kogi,” Adebayo said.
“The impact of these outages will gradually spread to the states mentioned above and if no action is taken within the next few days, a total outage of telecommunication sites in all these states will be catastrophically experienced,” he said.
“To the best of our knowledge, our members have settled all statutory levies and taxes due to the Kogi government and have taken necessary steps to comply with local laws that govern business activities within the state,” he added.
The ALTON chairman also highlighted some other unfriendly activities of the government which he said is hindering the telcos from delivering optimally.
He pointed out that in Abuja, they are unable to build infrastructures and members also suffer from multiple arbitrary charges.
