Telecoms: Association decries multiple taxes

Olusola Teniola, the President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, on Tuesday decried the multiple taxation imposed on the sector, saying that it constituted a hindrance to the development of the industry.
Teniola said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on the sideline of the just concluded 4th Regular Council on Communications meeting in Kaduna.
Teniola said: “Multiple taxation and multiple regulations are recurring things that have been with us for a number of years and they constitute a hindrance to our ability to achieve positive growth in the telecommunications industry.
“We have 26 taxes right now that are impinging on the industry and we were recently told that there are 27 communication services tax to be introduced.
“We don’t want that to happen; we already have too many taxes stiffening the growth of the industry as investors look for friendlier environments.
“We need government to make the environment more enabling because the sector can create more jobs by bringing in more investments which will translate to more taxes and revenue to government.
“We do not want to stifle ICT and the telecoms sector, which is the goose that is laying the golden egg, particularly because the sector contributes N1.4 trillion per quarter to this country.”
Teniola said that the meeting was an important avenue to discuss with the minister and other stakeholders in the sector and recommended that the meeting be convened periodically.
According to him, the meeting is a veritable avenue for like-minded stakeholders to discuss issues affecting the sector under their purview.
Teniola said that ATCON, established since 1993, had the mandate to interact with government, to guide policies and regulatory directives.
He said: “ATCON will continue to engage with government and the civil society, to ensure that an enabling environment is fostered for foreign direct investment in the industry.
“We will also continue to evolve new avenues for youths to get employed because the next generation is really about the digital age and digital transformation; the youths are better placed to take us there.