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| Mrs. Johnson |
The Federal Government has issued new Right of Way
(RoW) guidelines to regulate the modalities of laying fibre cables on federal
highways across the country.
This development came as the Federal Government has
set up a joint minister 8-man committee to strengthen its position and
determination in ensuring the issue of RoW is nipped in the bud.
Special Adviser on Media to the Minister of
Communications Technology, Mrs. Efem Nkanga in disclosed this to ITRealms
Online at the weekend, saying that the joint 8-man committee was inaugurated by
the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson and her
counterpart in the ministry of works, Mr. Mike Onolememen in Abuja last Friday.
She noted that current submitted new right of way
(RoW) guidelines to direct laying of fibre cables on federal highways nationwide.
According to her, in a press statement made available
to ITRealms Online, one of the steps of achieving this goal will be to eradicate
poor quality of service in the telecoms industry.
The committee, she said, made up of four members each
from both ministries submitted the report to the two ministers at the Ministry
of Works on Friday.
She explained that new RoW guidelines to be adopted soon,
pegs the chargeable RoW access fee for laying of ICTSP ducts and cables at
N145.0/linear metre and N20.0/linear metre as annual maintenance access fee,
subject to periodic reviews at five-year intervals or whenever compelling
circumstances demand such reviews.
The new guidelines, she said, also stipulates that
henceforth applications for granting of RoWs will be treated and concluded
within 30 calender days.
“The new guidelines mandate infrastructure sharing to
reduce incidents of multiple digging up of roads which compromise the integrity
of the roads,” she said, warning, however that any contravention of the
guidelines will lead to suspension of RoW, revocation of RoW and a fine of a
million naira a day.
The Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs Omobola
Johnson was quoted as saying that the collaboration and partnership
between the two ministries is a demonstration of how President Jonathan’s
cabinet is working to deliver on the President’s transformation agenda.
She said that the report marks a very important
milestone in the quest to improve quality of service delivery in the telecoms
industry and will ultimately lead to a reduction in the cost of providing
infrastructure in the country.
Mrs. Johnson stressed that the implementation of the
RoW guidelines at the federal level will lead to improved service quality and
broadband penetration in the country because fibre is a key transmission
element for broadband.
She assured that the two ministries would continue to
collaborate to deliver on the Federal Government’s transformation agenda and pointed
out that the need for the guidelines to be adopted at the state level in order
to ensure fibre deployment nationwide.
To underscore how low fibre deployment is in Nigeria,
she said that the United Kingdom (UK) that is, one quarter the size of Nigeria
has 60 times more fibre than Nigeria.
She said that the communication technology ministry
will continue to partner with the ministry of works to foster a holistic way of
laying fibre across the country for the benefit of the industry.
“It’s a new era and a new time in that we will begin
to build the critical infrastructure that we need in the country” she said.
Equally in his remarks, the Minister of Works, Mike
Onolememen said that the issuance of new RoW guidelines is one of the firsts of
the collaborative hallmark of the Jonathan’s administration.
He said that the Ministries are synergising to deliver
Nigeria to greater heights, emphasising the need for the collaboration amongst
the two ministries and the setting up of the Committee rose as a result of the
need to coordinate the provision of infrastructure to Nigerians because of the
plethora of companies bastardising RoWs without requisite benefits to the
country.
The minister said that once Mrs Johnson broached the
subject to his ministry, he immediately bought into it and the outcome is the
issuance of new RoW guidelines that will facilitate effective service delivery
in the telecoms sector.
Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
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