N4.92 trillion budget throws up fresh opportunities for phone industry

Ben Uzor Jr

Goodluck Jonathan’s proposed N4.92 trillion budget is expected to open up fresh opportunities for mobile phone companies in Nigeria’s highly competitive market. President Goodluck Jonathan, who presented the 2013 budget before the joint session of the Nigerian National Assembly, revealed that the Ministry of Agriculture, will work with the Ministry of Communication Technology under the leadership of Omobola Johnson to ensure that 5 million women farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs receive mobile phones in order to assist them access information on agro-inputs through an e-wallet scheme. According to him, the move was part of strategy geared towards integrating women in society.

“We have developed an innovative approach to mainstreaming gender issues starting with 5 pilot ministries – Agriculture, Health, Communication Technology, Water Resources and Works. These ministries are signing MOUs with the Ministry of Women Affairs to deliver on specific services for women. The Ministry of Agriculture, for example, will work with the Ministry of Communication Technology to ensure that 5 million women farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs receive mobile phones to be able to access information on agro-inputs through an e-wallet scheme”, he stated. Industry experts have confidence that the scheme would further deepen the mobile phone sector.

According to them, it would further throw up new vistas of opportunities for application developers, phone makers and telecoms operators who are at the moment all jostling to expand the scope of Nigeria’s phone market.  Yemi Johnson, a mobile applications developer told Business Day that the scheme represent a huge opportunity for the mobile phone industry. “The federal governments’ agriculture programme is throwing up new opportunities for new firms to spring up. It represents an enormous opportunity for telecoms operators, device makers, apps developers to really expand the market. These are the kind of prospect that the industry has been craving for.”

Onome Okwa, communications manager for Resourcery Plc, an Information Technology (IT) integration company sees Jonathan’s pronouncement as a case of misplaced priority. Okwa told Business Day in a phone interview, “You don’t just throw up policies in the air without understanding the issues on ground. In Kenya, for instance where this sort of initiative was successful, the country first developed a robust mobile payment system and people naturally gravitated to it. We don’t have that here at the moment. How many women are living on sustenance farming today? We need to have that figure before we embark on such an initiative. The competition in the mobile phone market has reduced the prices of device significantly. As far as I am concerned, Jonathan is just playing to the gallery”.

In his speech, President Goodluck Jonathan said the budget gives priority to the concerns of security, infrastructure, food security and human development sectors. “It is a Budget that introduces a series of innovative features. This Budget is a push in the right direction borne out of our well thought-out and articulated developmental policies. This is a budget for every Nigerian. It belongs to the farmer, the investor, the entrepreneur, the youth and the elderly. Yes, we have challenges, but also incredible opportunities. Ours is the task of transforming these opportunities into real, tangible outcomes which all our people can experience and call their own. We need the cooperation of everyone to make it work, to grow the economy, and to create jobs for our people”, Jonathan posited.