Airtel boss meets Tinubu, says floating naira will unleash foreign investments Separato

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The Chairman of Bharti Airtel Worldwide, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, on Monday met with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, saying that the decision to float naira will now unleash foreign investments in the country.

Addressing correspondents after the meeting, the Airtel boss, who was accompanied by Dr. Segun Ogunsanya, Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Nigeria, lauded the president particularly for making foreign exhange easier to access.

Mittal regretted that lack of easy access to foreign exchange had prevented the company from importing critical equipment needed for its operation in the country.

According to him, the worldwide market has applauded naira devaluation and investors are now ready to come into the country.

While noting that Airtel had made just under $4 billion investment since coming into Nigeria, he affirmed that the company would roll out its 5G services and as well revealed that it would be making additional investment of $700 million in the next two years.

Mittal stated: “We’re already investing about $400 million a year, which has been going on for the last many years. That will of course continue. That is business as usual.

“On top of that, to roll out the 5G and more fiber into the ground and data centres, will require more $700 million to get to that outcome.

“So, while there is no exact number, I can give you, but all I can tell you is $400 million is what we generally invest every year.

“With 5G, the investment is only going to go up for the next two or three years, before it comes back to the same $350, $450 million a year.

“We have invested just under $4 billion since the time we have come into Nigeria.”

The telecom magnate noted that the Tinubu administration had shown commitment to removing Nigerians from poverty and Nigeria’s potential to leverage digital infrastructure for the benefit of its citizens.

He added: “One of the key changes that His Excellency, the President, has made in the first few days of his tenure, has been making naira free float unto the market, letting the market decide, as opposed to CBN’s very …four or five exchange rates, which was very difficult to navigate for companies like ourselves and many others.

“As you’ve all seen, the naira has devalued, but the worldwide markets have given standing ovations to this move and the dollar bonds have strengthened in Nigeria and generally there’s excitement in investing and companies who are going to be coming to put their bases here in Nigeria.

“I also saw this President’s deep commitment to removing poverty. I come from a country, India, where we also have decades of poverty, which has been rapidly minimized and eradicated in some parts, through intervention of massive infrastructure investment, massive digital ecosystem creation and using the digital infrastructure to provide services by the government to its citizens, be that direct benefit transfer in the form of cash in the hands of people, biometric-based banking transactions, biometric-based health services.

“During the COVID time, India, as you know, through the biometric, could ensure that every citizen of the country was inoculated and vaccinated and these things that the technology can offer and more, are now fully on display in India and available to its friendly countries in Africa, like Nigeria.”

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