WHO WILL COMPETE WITH MTN?

MBABANE – Dumsani Ndlangamandla, the new Minister of ICT, has been kept in the dark about companies interested in providing mobile telephone services in the country.

ICT stands for Information, Communications and Technology.
The minister says he is not aware that a Mozambican based company, Movitel, is interested in setting up shop in the country.
Ndlangamandla said he heard it for the first time from this reporter that Movitel wanted to do business in Swaziland.
He was appointed minister on November 3, 2013, which means he has been in office for three months.

“Perhaps they are yet to update me. At the moment, I have not been updated on any company that wants to provide mobile telephone services in Swaziland,” said the minister.
“I haven’t even been informed of any company that has applied for a licence to provide mobile telephone services in the country.”
Movitel is a joint venture between Vietnam Telecoms and SPI-Gestão e Investimentos, the investment company of Mozambique’s ruling party, Frelimo.

Frelimo stands for Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, which can be translated to Mozambique Liberation Front.
Launched in 2010, Movitel aims to cover 80 per cent of the Mozambican population with its network within three years and pledged an initial investment of E4.6 billion to establish its nationwide network. 
By the end of 2012, the population of Mozambique stood at 25 203 395 people.

Calls are charged at about E1.43 per unit through the Movitel network.
It could not be established why the ministry’s officials withheld the information from the minister of the Crown.
This is so because it is the duty of the ministry’s administration to keep a Cabinet minister abreast with developments taking place.
The ICT minister was in Parliament on Tuesday answering questions on the mobile telephone service monopoly which ended in 2008.

Six years down the line, there is no other company registered to provide mobile telephone services.
Ndlangamandla told MPs that the monopoly ended in 2008. He said a certain company had shown some interest but he did not know what had happened to it.

Specifically asked if he was aware of Movitel’s interest as its officials visited the country the country in January 2013, the minister responded: “I am hearing this from you for the first time.”
He said it was even difficult to make a comment because he had no clue about the matter.

Bheki Gama, the Ministry of ICT’s acting Principal Secretary, said he was not aware of Movitel’s interest. As a matter of fact, he said, the  Movitel’s issue had not been discussed at the ministry.
“I just remember one entity that visited the country last year but I can’t remember the name of the officer in our ministry who attended the meeting. I can’t be sure if it was Movitel,” Gama said.

Gama did not even know the company called Movitel and asked us to brief him on where it operated and headquartered. It can be said that in 2010, a delegation from Vodacom South Africa also visited the country to explore avenues to do business here.

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