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Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, Thursday, said the Federal Government will spend about N41.6 billion to provide free unlimited broadband internet connectivity to 49 tertiary institutions, 20 airports, and six markets across the country.
Pantami who disclosed this at a press briefing yesterday in Abuja, said this will be the second and third phase of the project, noting that the money will come from the sector’s internally generated revenue (IGR) which it has decided to spend on education, commerce and aviation.
He said: “You may recall that we converged on the first phase at Transcorp Hilton on 24th November 2022, where we distributed award letters to 18 higher institutions, 14 universities and 1 collage of education and also 20 markets for small, micro and medium enterprises. On March 31, 2023, less than a week ago, I received an update from the NCC with the regards to the implementation of what we have done. Based on the report, generally, we can safely say that the first phase has been implementated averagely up to 80 percent.
“So it is because of this that I feel it is the right time to commence phase 2 and phase 3 . On Wednesday March 29, I was at the Federal Executive Council meeting where I presented two memoranda for this event we gathered here, which cover 49 higher institutions of learning, 20 airport and six markets. So by implication, each memo represents a phase. So we are here for phase two and also phase three.
“The total amount we have committed to this is approximately 41.6 billion Naira. Historically, it is important to realize that this is not just direct government intervention, but it is a government intervention that we willingly sacrificed from our internally generated revenue. As we all know , in the fiscal responsibility act 2007, section 21, clearly states that, from the operating surplus as regards to your IGR, what you generate you ought to retain 20 percent.
“Then section 22 mentioned that 80 percent of IGR is to be remitted to the consolidated revenue account of the federation. We generated our revenue internally. EVC of NCC once met me saying “this is what we have generated and we want to spend the money because we have certain challenges within our sector that that money should be dedicated to and I arranged another meeting where I invited the board chairman of NCC and the executive vice chairman and said instead of spending this 41.6 billion Naira within our sector, it is better we sacrifice the whole money for other sectors. I was able to convince the chairman and the EVC and both of them agreed with me that we should use the money to support education, commerce and other activities within the sector because what we can generate, other sectors will not be able to do that.
I wrote to Mr president and he approved and directed me to write a memo for the first, second and third phase which I did and that is why we are here today.”
