Emma Okonji

The Executive Secretary of the West African Telecommunications Regulators’ Assembly (WATRA), Mr. Aliyu Aboki has said Fintech, E-commerce and Digital Marketing contributed as much as 80 per cent growth rate in telecoms business across West Africa in 2024.

Such growth, he stated, is largely driven by payment services offered by Fintech players, which cut across e-commerce and digital marketing.

Aboki who spoke at a virtual media interactive session recently, while presenting WATRA’s agenda with the theme: “Driving Digital Transformation Prosperity Through Collaborative Regulations: The WATRA Agenda,” said the growth rate increased to 21 per cent in 2019 and 60 per cent in 2023, before reaching 80 in 2024, occasioned largely by telecoms investments and infrastructural development across the region. 

According to him, the growth rate enhanced digital economy in West Africa, contributing $30 billion annually to the regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Giving WATRA’s role in the growth of telecommunications business across West African countries, Aboki said: “WATRA is not a regulator, but an association of regulators in the sub-region of West Africa, with a responsibility to improve telecoms service delivery in West Africa, through collaboration. WATRA’s role in all of these growth areas is that it supports and promotes regulatory harmonisation, facilitates infrastructure development and encourages development across the regulatory bodies in different West African countries. WATRA helps to bring speed of development in West Africa.”

Giving details of WATRA’s plan and focus areas, Aboki said: “WATRA will continue to focus on its service expansion pan and increase collaboration in order to extend connectivity to rural areas and under-developed areas in West Africa. We will collaborate with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to leverage technology that will advance development in West Africa. We will ensure that new entrants in satellite and space technologies, maximise the benefits to enhance the growth of telecoms business across West African countries, and as well promote cybersecurity and data protection among member states.       

Fielding questions from journalists on how best to address, the issue of disparity in telecoms infrastructure among ECOWAS states, Aboki said WATRA would ensure that countries with more advanced telecoms infrastructure, share their experiences and methodologies with countries that have less telecoms infrastructure.

“For example, some countries do not have policies on co-location of telecoms infrastructure and WATRA was able to help build the capacities of some of the regulators in such a way that it attracted investors to invest in their telecoms infrastructure rollout. WATRA is also encouraging infrastructure sharing among telecoms operators in different regions,” Aboki said.

In the area of possible cost reduction in spectrum management across regions, Aboki said spectrum management remained key, but stressed that most times, different regions use spectrum management to raise revenue for the regions. He however said if spectrum was overpriced, it would affect the level of investments. At WATRA, we advocate best practices in spectrum pricing to ensure even distribution and easy access to spectrum. We will continue to advocate for best practices to be followed by regions in spectrum allocation, Aboki further said. 

Addressing the challenges of high roaming charges and the disparity in roaming charges across West African countries, the WATRA boss called for a uniform tariff rate for roaming charges in West Africa, adding that WATRA will ensure a bilateral agreement between countries to achieve it.

Worried that data generated in West Africa, are still transmitted to internet hubs in Europe and America, before getting to its final destination in West Africa, Aboki      said WATRA had been advocating for Internet Exchange Point structure for West Africa, insisting that it will boost connectivity across West African countries, and also reduce cost of data in West Africa.

“WATRA is working towards improving the interconnectivity of infrastructure companies. Infrastructure companies should be able to interconnect within West Africa, instead of allowing our data to first travel to Europe before returning to West Africa. We need more of the West African data to be hosted in data centres located in West Africa and not in Europe in order to save cost. Our priority is to increase regional connectivity, reduce cost of data and enhance access to spectrum,” Aboki said.