ICT revenue grows to N408b in 3 years
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Federal revenue from Information and Communications Technology (ICT) rose from N51 billion in 2019 to N408 billion in 2022 riding on the crest of digital economy championed by Abuja.
Communications and Digital Economy Minister Isa Pantami credited the growth to the implementation of digital economy policies spearheaded by the ministry to level Nigeria up with the rest of the world now thriving on knowledge economy.
“The ICT sector provided three unprecedented contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country in the last three years, namely 14.07% in Q1 2020, 17.92 percent in Q2 2021 and 18.44 per cent in Q2 2022.
“At each time, these numbers were the highest ever contribution of the ICT sector to the GDP,” Pantami said at the Digital Economy Complex, Mbora, Abuja.
“Also, the ICT sector grew by 14.70% in Q4 2020, making it the fastest growing sector of the Nigerian economy in the last quarter of 2020 and the only sector to have grown by double digits.
“This played a critical role in enabling Nigeria to exit recession.
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Quarterly revenues
“Furthermore, the quarterly revenues also generated for the federal government rose from N51.3 billion to N408.7 billion through spectrum sales and taxes from the sector,” Pantami added, per Vanguard.
He said the ministry came first in all the parameters used to assess the performance of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) at the retreat ministerial retreat in Abuja.
He disclosed more jobs are being created through digital economy and the revenue of the sector continues to increase.
More than 863,372 people have benefited from digital skills programmes, he added, and the government has signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with Microsoft, Google, and Huawei to train five million Nigerians.