The Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), has raised serious concern over the likelihood of major disruption of telecommunication services in 10 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) following the sealing of telecom infrastructure by Kogi State Government over alleged tax defaults of telcos.
The National Chairman of the association, Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, who raised the alarm during a media briefing in Lagos, lamented that as at last Sunday, the number of telecoms sites (base stations) sealed by the state government’s revenue service officials had risen to 150 with the possibility that more sites may be closed this week.
The industry expert said that if the unbridled closure of the facilities was not stopped, there could be total disruption of telecom services in Kogi, Nasarawa, Benue, Enugu, Anambra, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara and Niger states as well as the FCT.
Adebayo said that the total outage would not only affect telecoms services, but would also affect banking services as Automated Teller Machines (ATM) and Point of Sales (PoS) financial services will be adversely affected.
In addition, the ALTON chief warned further that the imminent outage would also affect security in the nine states and Abuja, if urgent steps are not taken to call the officials of the Kogi State Internal Revenue Service to order.
The industry expert said that the action of State Government would also jeopardize communication services provided by telecoms operators to security agencies such as the Nigeria Police Force, the Armed Forces in addition and to other emergency and social services in Kogi and other neighbouring states.
He therefore called on the Presidency, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to call Kogi State Government to order before its action would cripple telecommunications services nationwide.
The telecom expert expressed surprise that despite the letters from the ONSA instructing all states to desist from shutting down telecom base stations, Kogi State Government defied the order by clamping on telecom operators’ facilities rather than exploring the dialogue option.
He explained: “ALTON wishes to express its concern about the shutting down of telecommunications facilities in Kogi State as a result of disputes arising from unusual taxes and levies demanded by the Kogi State government through its Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning, Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources, Kogi State Environmental Protection Board, championed by the Kogi State Internal Revenue Service (KIRS).
“This situation arises as a number of critical telecommunications sites belonging to our members have been closed and sealed up by Kogi State Government in an attempt to increase its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) collection”, he added.
Recalling on what transpired between the state government and the telecom operators before the former resorted to sealing of the latter’s facilities, the association’s chairman said that the government’s action followed an ex-parte court order obtained by the Kogi State Internal Revenue Service over unsubstantiated allegations that telecoms operators were in default of tax payments to the state government.
He clarified further: “As a result of these actions by the state government, our members are unable to refuel power generators in these sites, a situation, which has led to outage of over 150 sites, including hub sites across parts of Kogi State, with likely impact on nine states surrounding Kogi.
“We are very concerned that this indiscriminate action has the potential of further leading to a total telecommunications outage in Kogi State with neighboring states and parts of the Federal Capital Territory adversely impacted.”
“To the best of our knowledge, our members have settled all statutory levies and taxes due to the Kogi State government and have taken necessary steps to comply with local laws that govern business activities within Kogi State”, Adebayo maintained.
He listed some of the levies and taxes being demanded by the government as including, Annual Right of Way (ROW) renewal; Social Services contribution; Employee Economic Development Levy; Mast site premises renewal and Fire Service yearly renewal.
According to the ALTON leader, the Kogi State Environmental Protection Board was also demanding for payment of environmental levy; failure to submit an environmental impact assessment report fine; failure to register industry fine; and failure to submit environmental audit report every two years fine.
Other levies are, storage of petroleum products and radioactive materials without written permission fine; failure to comply with setbacks to roads, power lines and rivers/streams fine and dumping of toxic or hazardous substances or harmful waste without approval.
