PAP: Costs of the Internet in Africa need to be brought down

5 November 2009

Reduce the costs of the Internet in Africa so as to promote economic development.

TIC technologies need to be made more accessible on the Continent, the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) has decided.

This decision follows the submission of a report this week by the Permanent Commission for Transport, Industry, Communications, Energy, Sciences, and Technology.

The principal message from the report was that the deputies should strive to reduce the costs of telecommunications services, in particular of the Internet, according to the Senegalese Press Agency.

Echoing this recommendation, the Vice-President of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Ernest Nduke, declared at a conference that the NTIC are fundamental to the development of the African countries.

Quoted in the daily Next, he stated that: “It has been clearly established that the economic development of a nation can be speeded up by improvements in its NTIC infrastructures. This means in effect that there can be no modern economy without a full NTIC infrastructure”.<br/>