Niger: towards improving mobile services in insecure areas
May 21st 2024
The Nigerien Ministry of Communication, Posts and the Digital Economy has created a committee responsible for dealing with the problem of quality of services and the rehabilitation of damaged sites in insecure zones. The members of the said committee were officially installed on Friday, May 17, by Minister Sidi Mohamed Raliou in the premises of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Postal Services (ARCEP).
The committee’s missions include assessing the quality of services, studying regional best practices, proposing an action plan to address the factors causing the problems, monitoring the implementation decided actions, resupply and rehabilitation of telephone sites in insecure zones.
The creation of this committee follows a meeting in January where sector stakeholders identified damage to infrastructure in insecure areas as a major cause of the deterioration of telecoms services in Niger. It was then recommended to establish a permanent framework for exchanges to resolve these problems.
This initiative comes in a context where the government constantly puts pressure on Nigerien operators to provide good quality services to the population. The executive proceeds through consultations, reminders, formal notices, financial sanctions, etc. In July 2023, ARCEP imposed a fine of 4.32 billion CFA francs ($7.1 million) on Airtel, Moov Africa, Niger Telecoms and Zamani.
This pressure from the government reflects the ambition of the Nigerien authorities to develop ICT in order to make digital a lever for socio-economic development. At the end of 2023, Niger had, according to the regulator, 17.2 million mobile phone subscriptions, for a penetration rate of 65% out of a population of 26.2 million. The number of Internet service subscriptions was 8.2 million, or 32% of the population.
Source: Agency EcoFin
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