In Three Quarters, Economy Gained $101m from IT Start-ups – NITDA

• In Three Quarters, Economy Gained $101m from IT Start-ups – NITDA

In the first three quarters of the year, start-ups in Information Technology contributed $101m to the Nigerian economy, the National Information Technology Development Agency, has said.

The Director -General of NITDA, Dr Isah Ibrahim, said this at a pitch by new ICT companies during a programme – Start-up Friday – organised by the IT development agency in Abuja to galvanise innovations in the ICT sector.

Ibrahim said start-up in the industry contributed a total of $9m to the economy in the first three months of the year.

According to him, the contribution of the start-ups went up to $57m in the second quarter and dipped to $35m in the third quarter of the year.

He said, “With the little efforts we have put in place, a lot has been achieved in the ICT sector today. In the case of our ICT start-ups, within the first quarter of 2018, start-ups generated $9m; in the second quarter, they generated $57m and recently in the third quarter, they generated $35m.

“This is only within 2018. This achievement is unprecedented in the history of ICT sector in Nigeria.”

The NITDA boss also disclosed that the patronage of locally manufactured IT products and services had increased as a result of the implementation of buy Nigeria policy articulated by the Federal Government.

Ibrahim said NITDA had to report some defaulting agencies to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

According to him, after EFCC had grilled some defaulting heads of MDAs, government purchase of locally made ICT products and services witnessed a tremendous increase.

Meanwhile, Minister of Communications, Mr Adebayo Shittu, has attributed the poor rating of Nigeria in the global ICT community to lack of integrated national broadband backbone infrastructure in the country.

Shittu said this at the meeting of the Nigerian National Broadband in Abuja.

The minister said that the council was required to provide periodic evaluation of the progress being made by the country in the roll out of broadband infrastructure.

According to him, the council is also required to facilitate various collaborations for the delivery of broadband infrastructure in the country.