By Linus Aleke
The Community Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), has taken steps aimed at ensuring seamless communication in West African.
The Parliament however, deplored the difficulties associated with roaming mobile lines within the ECOWAS region.
Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, Rt. Hon. Sidie Mohamed Tunis, said this while addressing audience, at the Delocalised Meeting of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications and Information Technology/Education, Science and Culture/Trade Customs and Free Movement in Niamey, Niger Republic.
Hon. Tunis said, issues concerning telecommunications, mobile roaming and its tariffs were quite critical and constitute major ingredients in the ECOWAS Integration Process.
The Speaker expressed regret that none of the benefits were achievable without first standardizing the tariff regime in the sub-region and making it cheaper, given that free communication is the anchor of free movement of people, goods and services and intra-regional trade.
He said, “data from the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), shows that at the end of 2021, 515 million people subscribed to mobile services in Sub-Saharan Africa, representing 46 percent of the population, estimating an additional 100 million new subscribers by 2025, taking the total number of subscribers to 613 million, which is 50 percent of the region’s population.
“Again, in 2021, mobile technologies and services generated around eight percent of GDP across Sub-Saharan Africa, almost $140 billion of economic value addition. The mobile ecosystem also supported more than 3.2 million jobs (directly and indirectly) and contributed substantially to public sector financing to the tune of $16 billion raised through taxes on the sector. Projections are that, by 2025, mobile’s contribution will grow by $65 billion (to almost $155 billion), as the countries in the region increasingly benefit from improvements in productivity and efficiency brought by the increased subscription to mobile services”.
He added that the burden or cost of connectivity served as a great disincentive for mobile adoption and penetration.
The Speaker of the Republic of Niger National Assembly, Rt. Hon. Seini Oumarou, expressed delight that the meeting is looking into such relevant subject as the roaming of telephone communications in the sub-region.
“Indeed, if we want to have the best part of our economy in our community, we must prevent space and borders from becoming obstacles to free communication. Both administrators and economic operators should be able to ensure the continuity of their communications from one locality to another, from one country to another. We should therefore ensure that an effective system of roaming is ensured first, in each of our countries and then across our borders,” Oumarou said.
The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Alieu Touray, said the catalytic role of telecommunications networks in facilitating regional integration cannot be overemphasized.
Touray who was represented by the ECOWAS Commissioner for Energy and Mines, Douka Sediko, also said in terms of end-user access, mobile technology has offered an opportunity to connect community citizens more easily.
