Mr. Eugene Juwah

Amaka Eze

The Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Mr. Eugene Juwah has stated that additional external investments were needed to improve quality of service and drive broadband growth in the country.

The NCC boss believes that additional investments in the telecoms space were necessary in order to address quality of service issues.

He noted that the telecoms industry had witnessed investment growth of $500,000 in 2001, to $18 billion in 2009, and $25 billion till date, but that it needed more investments to drive steady growth.”

He said:  “What you need to clear poor quality of service is further investment. We have to diverse a means to expand the existing infrastructures and other facilities used by the service providers.”  The growth in investment, he added, will come mainly from external sources.
He stated that the industry had contributed immensely to the nation, in terms job creation, especially for the youths, improving business transactions for organisations, capacity building for the unemployed aside from contributing to the nation’s GDP.
Juwah also stated that the growth in the number of subscribers, should herald an increase in the infrastructure used to carry the bulk.

“You cannot grow from less than a million subscribers to over 100 million subscribers without feeling the impact on the facilities. Financing a sector is a hugechallenge because telecoms facilities are of high capital intensity”, he said.

“Broadband is a technology that we cannot do without. It is also a technology that should not be left only to profit makers like telecommunication service providers,” he said.