Half-hearted attempts at ICT liberalisation have denied African countries investment dollars from within and outside the continent, says Ernest Ndukwe, chief executive of the Nigerian Communication Commission.
Speaking today at the Telecoms World Africa Conference in Cape Town, Ndukwe, along with other delegates, said Africa needs to deregulate the ICT sector and called for a uniform plan to ensure a common regulatory regime and to set standards.
"Governments should never be protective of the incumbent operators to the detriment of new entrants that will establish a more competitive environment," he noted.
Akossi Akossi, secretary general of the African Telecommunications Union, said several attempts at drafting a master plan have been made in the past, but they "came to nothing".
"In the mobile arena, we already have one standard across Africa, namely GSM. However, this has not been emulated in other ICT areas. We need to improve infrastructure, particularly supplying broadband for Internet access and interconnection of telephone systems."
Akossi said there needs to be a policy forum whereby regulators, governments and the private sector can come together on a continental basis to create the mechanisms that will allow a standardised telecommunications framework to be put in place.
"One obstacle has been the arbitrary changing of communications ministers and their departments in many countries. Often when these staff changes take place there is little in the way of continuity to ensure that policies worked on will be completed," he said.
"Technology knows no geographic or political boundaries," said Yvonne Muthien, MTN`s executive director for corporate affairs. "Base stations in SA can be used for making phone calls in Botswana and those in Rwanda can be used in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and parts of the Sudan."
Muthien said a common policy framework for Africa would help to alleviate some of the confusion around using services that are based in another country.
Yasmin Carrim, MTN`s group executive legal affairs, said an efficient regulatory framework helps attract foreign and domestic investors as it allows them to predict the future value of their investments.
"An inefficient framework leads to court cases and other forms of legal action that are costly and this is a big deterrent to investors. The regulator must also be perceived to be fair and that perception is vitally important," she said.
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