ESTIMATING THE REVENUE POTENTIAL OF A TELECOM-BASED SURCHARGE FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE FINANCING IN NIGERIA: A TECHNO-ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS

Vollständiger Abstract

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Innovative, earmarked financing mechanisms are increasingly proposed to close Nigeria's substantial universal health coverage (UHC) funding gap. This study estimated the annual revenue potential of a proposed telecom surcharge applied to mobile subscriptions, voice calls, SMS, and internet data in Nigeria, and assessed the sensitivity of this projection to underlying subscriber assumptions. Secondary usage data obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) were used to project annual revenue from an illustrative surcharge (₦1 per subscriber per day; ₦0.5 per minute of calls, per SMS, and per gigabyte of data). Projections were calculated in Microsoft Excel. As an additional analysis, the mobile-subscriber revenue component and total projected revenue were recalculated using independently verified, currently published NCC active-subscriber figures spanning July 2025 to April 2026, to assess the sensitivity of the projection to the subscriber-base assumption. Using the subscriber base and usage volumes reported in the source analysis (220 million active mobile subscribers), the surcharge was projected to generate approximately ₦160.2 billion annually: ₦80.3 billion from mobile subscriptions, ₦75.4 billion from calls, ₦4.1 billion from SMS, and ₦369 million from internet data. Recalculating the subscriber-based component using independently verified NCC active-subscriber figures for the twelve months to April 2026 (169.3–188.0 million, all materially below the 220 million figures used in the source projection) reduced the total projected annual revenue to between approximately ₦141.7 billion and ₦148.5 billion. A telecom-based surcharge has substantial revenue potential for UHC financing in Nigeria under either subscriber assumption, but the projection is materially sensitive to the subscriber-base figure used, and current NCC-published subscriber counts are appreciably lower than the figure used in the original projection. Revenue estimates of this kind should be recalculated against the most recent official NCC statistics at the time of policy submission, and should be read alongside qualitative evidence on willingness to pay and legal feasibility, which we report separately.