As Nigeria rebuilds momentum for the second phase of roll out in the Digital switch over project, chairman of the Set-Top Box manufacturers in the country, Mr Geoffrey Ohuabunwa revealed that the federal government would harvest billions of naira from the successful completion of the Digital Switch Over (DSO) project.
In an interview with Journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, Ohuabunwa said apart from massive employment generation, the DSO, if successfully delivered would generate fund for the government through the sales of spectrum to be vacated by broadcast stations to telecommunication companies.
“As a country, we have lost time, employment opportunities and revenue because we have not transited all these years.
“The project is designed in such a way that broadcasters are to vacate the spectrum they are occupying on their analogue transmission which is to be harvested by the federal government.
“The harvested spectrum which is called Dividend 1 and 2 will be sold to generate a lot of money for the country.
“Presently, NTA and most of the private TV stations are occupying some of the spectrum.
“The highest the private stations are paying to government for the spectrum is not more than N500 million.
“If they move out of the analogue system, the government will farm back the spectrum which cannot be less than 20.” Ohuabunwa said.
He recalled that the last time one of the spectrum was sold by the NBC, a whopping of N35 billion accrued to the government.
“If the process of DSO is completed and the government sells just five of the spectrums which I know will not be less than N50 billion each, that will help us to offset our budgeting deficit,” he submitted.
Zainab Sa’id
