BusinessDay... the voice of business: Celtel plans to inject fresh N119bn into the economy

Celtel plans to inject fresh N119bn into the economy
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ISAAC AREGBESOLA/MARY ALIYU on 01 May, 2008 02:00:00
 
In addition to over N476 billion injected in to Nigeria economy in the last 24
months by the various foreign investors Celtel Nigeria has planned to further
plough into the economy additional N119 billion ($I billion) this year.
Gamaliel Onosode, Chairman Celtel Nigeria limited who disclosed this yesterday
in Abuja during the launch of rural Acquisition Initiative (RAI) roll out, said
move was to ensure excellent service to the customers and boost the network.
“We are working aggressively to boost thebustness of our network, and we
intend to invest a further $1 billion this year so we can offer Nigerians what
they want, and that is coverage, capacity, quality and excellent customer
service” he said.
Dimeji Bankole, Speaker of House of Representatives in his remarks charged the
GSM operators across the country to consider the current high tariffs by working
with all the institutions responsible to ensure that it is reduced.
Onosode explained that the initiative being unveiled is targeted at the
development of rural communities, which also underscore the importance of
economic empowerment of the grass roots in ensuring sustainable national
economic development.
“The idea was to engage rural entrepreneurs as our trade partners; make such
entrepreneurs exclusive representatives of Celtel in their communities; offer
them a relevant portfolio of Celtel products and services; specifically
introduced low denomination RCVs; give them responsibility for Level 1 BTS
maintenance and security and operate with them a revenue sharing basis”
Onosode stressed.
The Chairman, while noting that said the company has in the past two years done
tremendously in living up to it corporate promise of making life better,
stressed that it is doing all that is professionally legitimate and
internationally acceptable to attain the position of market leadership.
“From just over 1000 base station in May 2006, we have grown to over 3200 as
at the end of March this year and with that has come a commensurate growth in
our coverage as well as capacity” adding that the subscriber base has
justifiably almost triple 5.4 million in May 2006 to almost 13 million” the
Chairman pointed out.
While noting that Nigeria has the potential of becoming the one of the top 20
richest countries in the year 2020 with its market population which is an
attraction to investor, Onosode bemoaned that the state of infrastructures and
the security situation across the country can push away the investors.
“We can attract much higher Foreign Direct Investment, if we can fix these
two needs as matter of national emergency by reference to fundamentals”
He said the company has not only the call of federal government on rural
telephony but also empowered several rural businessmen to contribute to the
economic development of their communities and by extension the entire country
According to him Celtel has also not only enhanced a bottom-up approach to
development, “but would also get the community to own it because part of the
initiative programme was that the local entrepreneur will assume indirect
ownership of our facilities in their domain, knowing full well that so long as
they are working efficiently themselves are guaranteed good business
prospects”
“We are therefore expect to achieve a significant reduction in the rising
incidents of generator theft and infrastructure vandalisation that has adversely
affected our operation over the years” he stated.
The Speaker who noted that population of 14, million communications is a
commendable initiative for Celtel said the RAI was important because anything
that concern rural dwellers is important as it will help empower them and foster
development.
Bankole stated that “the Rural Acquisition Initiative (RAI) will help those
who could not read and write as such help to instill a sense of ownership and
contribution in community members”.
He therefore commended Celtel on the plan to invest $1 billion in our economy
noting that “this for sure will help reduce poverty and create more job
opportunity and called on other operators to do the same”, gave assurance that
government will do all it can to support celtel and any other GSM operator with
similar initiative.