The Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, has disclosed that his administration has slashed the cost of data by 50%. The Minister stated on Thursday that in line with his promise for proper service delivery, the Industry regulator, Nigeria Communication Commission, NCC made this possible, as proposed by the ministry to ease internet access to Nigerians.
Pantami explained that the average cost of data 1 GB was slashed from N1000 in January 2020 to N487.18 in November which was significant.
The statement revealed that this followed the report by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) submitted to the Minister after directives were issues on the same.
Earlier this year, the Minister inaugurated a committee that developed the Nigerian National Broadband plan (2020-2025) on 16th December 2019, which was subsequently launched by President Buhari on 19th March 2020.
The Minister revealed that his office is working towards reducing the cost of data to as low as N390 by the end of the year 2025. This is scheduled to commence this year as “With the January 2020 baseline of N1,000 per GB, the maximum projected steady decrease for the end of each year was as follows: 2020 (N925), 2021 (N850), 2022 (N775), 2023 (N700), 2024 (N545) and 2025 (N390),” the report revealed.
According to the statement, the effort has gone beyond the projection as it was able to reach its three years target in one year instead of the N925 as projected is now N487.18 making it 47.33% lower than the projected value.
The Ministry has assured Nigerians that it would continue to serve Nigerians until they enjoy a price regime that supports fairness and customer friendly at the same time.
I explained that the NCC would continue to push policies that would ensure operators adopt competitive pricing that eschews unjustifiable margins as an investigation into an allegation of fast data depleting is underway.
Meanwhile, the Minister directed the NCC that all issues raised by citizens and customers are treated with utmost dispatch, promising that with proper collaboration, the goal of the broadband plan as being supervised by the ministry is in line with the policy of the agency on the digital economy.
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