Leadership (Abuja)
8 October 2008
ECOWAS member states are close to adopting a regulation that would facilitate mobile roaming in the region and reduce call charges.
Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, gave the indication at the ongoing 6th annual Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) Forum in Abuja.
He said that a telecommunications infrastructure programme, INTERCOM 11, designed to establish a regional ICT infrastructure for the community, was gradually being implemented.
The INTELCOM II, which was launched in 1997 is a successor to INTELCOM I which delivered 13 interstate telecommunication links to member-states.
INTELCOM II would ensure that the region had an integrated backbone that can serve the bandwidth requirements of member states as well as create a good market base for bandwidth.
Chambas said it was noteworthy that in the past five years, West Africa had made progress in access to ICT and in decreasing prices.
He, however, lamented that access cost had remained relatively high due to lack of appropriate national and regional enabling infrastructure.
He said that another inhibiting factor was the lack of open access on the SAT-3 marine cable, the only fibre optic cable that connects ECOWAS region to the global telecommunications network.
At present calls from within ECOWAS member states are more expensive than it costs to make calls to Europe and the U.S.
The ECOWAS president declared that a major thrust of the ECOWAS ICT vision was to ensure the harmonisation of national telecommunications and ICT policies toward the creation of a common liberalised market.
"Progress is being made towards translating into national law; a compendium of supplementary acts adopted by ECOWAS Heads of States and Government.
"Once they have been transposed into national legislature, the act will create a real common ICT market in the region.
"Due to the volume of electronic transactions that is constantly increasing, an appropriate regulatory framework is needed to create a confident environment for ICT users," he said. (NAN)
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