The Federal government has announced that telecom operators that want to deploy broadband infrastructure in green areas will only have to pay N14.50 as Right of Way (RoW) charges. This announcement was made by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mohammed Bello, at the official launch of some projects approved by the Federal Executive Council under the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy in Abuja recently.
Right of Way charge is a levy paid by telecommunication companies to state governments, permitting telecommunication companies to dig up the roads and install telecommunications hardware such as optic fibre cables that carry internet traffic
He stated that the discounted charges would be from December 1, 2022, and run for the next two years. He explained that green areas were places lacking any telecommunication infrastructure in the FCT.
The Right of Way charge has been full of inconsistencies across the states in terms of charges and has negatively impacted broadband infrastructure.
To harmonize the Right of Way (“RoW”) charges for broadband infrastructure investment, the Federal Government of Nigeria, in 2017, through the National Executive Council (the “NEC”), approved a policy, which resulted in a RoW Charge Agreement reached with all the governors of the 36 states of Nigeria.
Before the harmonisation, the states have been charging the telecoms operators different rates, ranging from N4,000 to N8,000 per metre, with such high and arbitrary charges acting as a deterrent to investment in the sector.
After the harmonisation at the Nigerian Governors Forum in January 2020, the telecoms operators were required to pay N145 per metre to lay fibre cable anywhere in the country. So this charge of N14.50 announced by the FCT minister is a 90% reduction of the regular charge.
Speaking at the launch, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, said that he was working assiduously to improve internet speed and reduce its cost in Nigeria in line with the National Broadband Plan 2020–2025.
He also added that the Federal Government had approved more than N16 billion for broadband infrastructure projects at 18 universities in the country’s six geopolitical zones.
