The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, ATCON, has thrown its weight behind the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, as it is set to implement local content development in the telecom industry for a more robust sector. ATCON president, Mr. Olusola Teniola, explained that the initiative is strategic and timely and for these reasons, he said
ATCON is delighted to identify with the collaboration put together by the NCC and the Office for Nigeria Content Development, ONCD, in Information and Communication Technology, ICT, to address lack of local content in the telecom sector.
He said, “The philosophy of local content development in the sector is to correct the imbalance in the international trade balance, to restructure Nigerian ICT industry with a view to increase indigenous participation in the value chain, and also to stimulate growth and development in the manufacturing of some ICT products and services.
“It is obvious that the structure of the Nigerian telecom and ICT sector is not really beneficial to the country in terms of foreign exchange earnings, because most of the inputs are imported from developed countries.
“If we really want to pursue Nigerian local content development vigorously as a nation with the intention of increasing its impact on our revenue, we must devise a means of producing those inputs locally.”
Meanwhile, Teniola was of the opinion that the NCC and ONCD should, as a matter of urgency, implement the plan they have developed to increase the active participation of Nigerian content, establish a joint evaluation, monitoring and enforcement department that would see to the adoption of local content, and pool resources together for the establishment of ICT park to encourage the production of some ICT inputs like switches, routers, mobile phone repairs, assembly, etc.
