Telecommunications operators under the aegis of  Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (Alton) has said that it could no longer guarantee quality of service in some parts of Abuja, Kaduna, Ilorin Lagos and Owerri as a result of shutdown of its members’ Base Transceiver Station (BTS) in those areas by the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (Nesra).
Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, Alton, said that in addition to Nesrea’s action, several other State and Local Government Authorities and their agents have increasingly adopted extra-judicial and ominous tactics of invading and locking up facility sites on trivial grounds and without consideration for administrative due process of law nor the wider implications of their action on the nation.
“It is regrettable that BTS sites are incessantly sealed or locked up by Government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) or their agents, typically employing Task Forces to forcefully extract illegal levies and other inappropriate commitments from operators. This is done without careful consideration of the harmful effects of such lockouts to the economy, foreign investment drive, safety and security as well as the wider implications on the generality of the Nigerian populace,” he said.
He added that the recent closures by Nesrea follow the alleged failure of telecommunication operators to submit Environmental Audit (EA) Reports (or EARs) for all BTS sites in the country by the 23rd of August, 2010 in response to Nesrea’s directives.
He noted that although the directive came during the year, after their members had already made their budgets for the year. Telecommunication operator’s he said, never-the-less commenced the exercise and succeeded to a large extent in submitting the EARs by the deadline of 23rd August, 2010. “This is notwithstanding the huge cost implication of the unbudgeted exercise, in an industry that is highly capital intensive, coupled with high operational costs and other challenges associated with the state of supporting infrastructure (such as power and transportation) and also the security situation in the country,” he explained.
He said: “Alton acknowledges and commends the decision of Nesrea to extend the deadline for submission of the EARs by one month, even as we note that the closure of the sites on the 23rd of August (ahead of the expiration of the initial deadline) runs contrary to the very directive of Nesrea. And it needs also to be pointed out that notwithstanding the extension given, it took NESREA officials several days before they unsealed the affected BTS sites”.
According to him, “the impact on quality of services are worsened by the fact that the telecoms infrastructure is a web of interconnected elements – failures on one service provider’s network will often compromise service quality and availability on other networks, negatively affecting users on the other networks. In that regard, Nigeria risks being ‘disconnected’ from the rest of the world as the infrastructure providing communications services are shut down”.
It is therefore in the national interest that telecoms networks be viewed and protected as essential national infrastructure whose seamless operation must not be interfered with without lawful justification and authorisation.
Alton he said however, noted that site closures are often carried out albeit without due consideration for the sensitivity of the telecommunications industry to the economy, given the nature of communications infrastructure. Further, site closures have been carried out in a manner that damages the infrastructure and compromises the health and safety of staff of the agencies concerned as well as occupiers of neighbouring premises. Restoration of the affected sites according to him is often at huge costs in time and financing, with immeasurable impact on the esteemed communication of subscribers. In Nesrea’s case sensitive equipment were crudely powered down, batteries were removed and taken away from generating sets, alloy locks were damaged, and staff of the operators were harassed and intimidated, using armed police officers.