The Centre for Cyber Awareness And development (CECAD ) has called on the Federal government to take urgent steps in reviewing the current high cost of internet services.
The non for profit organization made the call through its Executive Director, Mr. Hilary Damissah, while speaking as a panelist at the Internet Freedom Forum 2018, held at the Nigeria Airforce Conference Centre, Abuja two days ago.
Mr. Damissah pointed out that, the cost of internet services in Nigeria remains too exorbitant and unaffordable by the minority of the citizenry.
He argued that if the minimum wage is N18, 000, 2 percent of that will amount to ₦360, while 1GB of data comparatively across service providers is about ₦1, 000 which represents about 5.5% of the minimum wage. This situation, according to him, contradicts the global standard of spending only 2percent of minimum wage on data monthly. Mr. Damissah also stressed that apart from the situation being worrisome, many do not earn the minimum wage.
Speaking on the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) Operational and Fund Management Analysis, Damissah who is also the Publicity Secretary of the Nigerian Internet Group (NIG) noted that the Management of the USPF must go beyond project execution to periodically evaluate the use and impact of such facilities on the host communities.
The Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) was established by the Federal Government of Nigeria to facilitate the achievement of national policy goals for universal access and universal service to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in rural, un-served and under-served areas in Nigeria. The Fund is being managed to facilitate the widest possible access to affordable telecommunications services for greater social equity and inclusion for the people of Nigeria.
The event was a BudiT side Session of the Internet Freedom Forum 2018 and it also saw other speakers giving out their views on the topic.
The session was facilitated by BudgiT. BudgIT is a civic organisation driven to make the Nigerian budget and public data more understandable and accessible across every literacy span. BudgIT’s Innovation within the public circle comes with a creative use of government data by either presenting these in simple tweets, interactive formats like stakeholders engagements or inforgraphic displays