THISDAYonline

Even as subscribers continue to lament high tariffs by GSM operators, the Minister of Communica-tions, Dr. Muhammed Bello has said in Abuja that the companies actually paid pittance for the licences.

The Minister who was speaking in Abuja while hosting the Lead Private Sector Development Specialist, of the Global ICT Department of the World Bank, Dr. Mohammed Mustafa said that it was wrong for people to think that the licence fee of the GSM operators is exorbitant.

His words: "What the GSM operators paid the government is pittance."

Shedding light on how he came about this verdict, the Communications Minister said that compared to what government made from selling NITEL, "All of them (the GSM licence fees) is not up to $1 billion."

He however explained that government considered other factors apart from the money it stands to gain from the exercise in making the kind of decisions it made. Bello said government considered the issue of affordability when it was formulating the policy that guided the GSM licence auction.

It was the same explanation given by the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe August this year when he said that government gave the 14-day deadline in payment for the licence by the winners so that they would not over-bid.

He explained that if government had put a longer deadline for payment, a lot of bidders would have bided up to such an amount that would make the cost of a licence so high, and this would in turn be passed on to the subscribers.

Bello who reiterated government's determination to create a conducive business environment for investors in Nigeria also said he did not foresee any of the GSM operators having problems breaking (even) as, according to him, the country has a lot of opportunities for telecoms operators.

He based his optimism on the fact that "slump in telecoms does not affect our market."

He was of the view that a world of profitable opportunities awaits investors in telecoms: "Anybody who invests in telecoms in Nigeria will reap a lot of benefits in the future."

Critics have blamed the high cost of airtime of GSM operators on the licence fees of $285 million paid by each of the three operators to the NCC for their licences.

NITEL which also paid $285 million for its licence was recently sold along with its GSM licence by government to Investors International Limited for the sum of $1.137 billion.

The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Ndukwe, had earlier said the $285 licence fees paid by the GSM operators was not responsible for the high tariff charges.

The GSM operators, on the other hand, had adduced licences fees as well as the high cost of doing business in Nigeria especially that of providing basic infrastructure like electricity as being responsible for the high cost of GSM services.

For instance, the connection fee for an MTN line is N20,000 plus a monthly access fee of N4,000 and an initial airtime of N15,000 excluding handset.

It is just of recent that the operators have begun lowering their charges through one form of promotions or the other to woo more subscribers.