ALTON seeks FG’s intervention over threat
Jonah Iboma
Following the moves by authorities of the Federal Capital Territory to pull down the base Transceiver stations of mobile phone operators in the city over alleged non-compliance with its tax regulations, telecommunications operators have appealed to the Federal government to halt the move.
Reacting to the destruction of fences and walls of cell sites otherwise called base stations in three locations in the city on Friday, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, said the move by the FCT administration was at variance with an earlier directive of the Federal Government which they claimed put matters concerning telecommunications in the “exclusive preserve of the Ministry of Communications and the Nigerian Communications Commission.”
Chairman of the body Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, informed our correspondent the move by the FCT was to designed to make operators pay heavy taxes it unilaterally imposed on them and also to make them collocate against their will and without consideration with the technological requirements.
He said: “The action of the FCT is in an attempt to force our members to pay heavy taxes for operating in the FCT and also force us into collocation arrangement with some private company, which is commercially unviable and technologically unfeasible.”
Adebayo said if the FCT was allowed to have uits way, telecom services would be drastically affected in the capital city and therefore called on government to arrest the trend.
“The implication of this demolition of our members infrastructure might have a far reaching effect on telecoms services in the FCT. ALTON calls on the FGN to stop the FCTA from carrying out any further destruction to telecom infrastructure,”he stated.
Officials of the FCT had on Friday pulled fences and walls of three base stations, two belonging to MTN Nigeria Communications and one belonging to Globacom, in what was said to be the first step towards a planned pulling down of the telecom equipment of the firms next.
According to sources close to the events, the FCT officials planned to return to the sites on Wednesday to pull down the equipment if there was no compliance with the charges it imposed on the sites. ALTON said the N3mmilion per annum charge per base station was not acceptable to them and warned that this could lead to an increase in the cost of calls to the city.
Following the moves by authorities of the Federal Capital Territory to pull down the base Transceiver stations of mobile phone operators in the city over alleged non-compliance with its tax regulations, telecommunications operators have appealed to the Federal government to halt the move.
Reacting to the destruction of fences and walls of cell sites otherwise called base stations in three locations in the city on Friday, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, said the move by the FCT administration was at variance with an earlier directive of the Federal Government which they claimed put matters concerning telecommunications in the “exclusive preserve of the Ministry of Communications and the Nigerian Communications Commission.”
Chairman of the body Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, informed our correspondent the move by the FCT was to designed to make operators pay heavy taxes it unilaterally imposed on them and also to make them collocate against their will and without consideration with the technological requirements.
He said: “The action of the FCT is in an attempt to force our members to pay heavy taxes for operating in the FCT and also force us into collocation arrangement with some private company, which is commercially unviable and technologically unfeasible.”
Adebayo said if the FCT was allowed to have uits way, telecom services would be drastically affected in the capital city and therefore called on government to arrest the trend.
“The implication of this demolition of our members infrastructure might have a far reaching effect on telecoms services in the FCT. ALTON calls on the FGN to stop the FCTA from carrying out any further destruction to telecom infrastructure,”he stated.
Officials of the FCT had on Friday pulled fences and walls of three base stations, two belonging to MTN Nigeria Communications and one belonging to Globacom, in what was said to be the first step towards a planned pulling down of the telecom equipment of the firms next.
According to sources close to the events, the FCT officials planned to return to the sites on Wednesday to pull down the equipment if there was no compliance with the charges it imposed on the sites. ALTON said the N3mmilion per annum charge per base station was not acceptable to them and warned that this could lead to an increase in the cost of calls to the city.
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