News
Nigerian Environment is Expensive
for Business—Airtel CEO
Written by Ben-Bright Mkpuma, Abuja
Unless the Nigerian government introduces measures that will
reduce the current high cost of doing business, foreign
investors may not access the economy in the coming years and the
existing ones may exploit the situation, at the expense of final
consumers.
Besides the Telecom sector, most international investors are not
willing to access other sectors of the economy, owing to the
risk associated with the business, arising from the absence of
power supply and insecurity among other factors.
Mr. Rajan Swaroop, the chief executive officer of the Airtel
acknowledged that Nigerian economy is expensive for any investor
to operate successfully. He explained that due to the risk
associated with the Nigerian business, prices or tariff have
high.
He added: “I think the Nigerian market is good and the people
are nice and friendly, but the problem is that the environment
is unsafe, due to the high of doing business”. The CEO assured
that Airtel would remain in Nigeria, with improved services and
innovative products to its teeming customers.
Airtel, according to the CEO plans to inject about USD600
million in the company, to enable its operations attain an
acceptable standard. It plans to generate about 2, 000 jobs
within the next few months. A fifth largest network in the
world, Airtel Nigeria currently offering a new bundle for
blackberry smart phones, known as Bconnected package, which
offers blackberry messenger as well as to social networks
Twitter, Facebook and Myspace.
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