Debt threatens digital switch over in Abuja, Kaduna

Huge debt owed by the Federal Government to one of the signal distributors in the ongoing digital switch over may disrupt the completion of the process, an official has said.

But the National Broadcasting Commission [NBC] said there was no cause for alarm as the debt to Pinnacle Communications Limited would soon be settled.
The debt issue came even as Nigerians express doubts over meeting the June 2017 deadline for the DSO of broadcast signals in Nigeria.

The facilities for the Abuja DSO which was commissioned in December by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo were installed by Pinnacle, but the company has not been paid by the government.
Though N5 billion had been paid to the manufacturers of set-top boxes and another N2bn to one of the two signal distributors, Pinnacle said it is still being owed huge sum of money.
“The huge debt to the company whose equipment and facilities were relied upon for the successful national launch of the DSO in Abuja in December 2016 is regarded as an imminent threat to the continuation of digital broadcasts in the federal capital’’, a stakeholder in the industry said.
But speaking on the debt issue at a press conference in Abuja recently, the NBC Director General Malam Is’haq Modibbo Kawu said the commission had commenced payment to some of the companies who participated in the DSO.
DAILY TRUST