
BY GIRMACHEW GASHAW
ADDIS ABABA-Safaricom Ethiopia, the new telecom service provider, said it has been building a long term foundation for digital transformation and inclusion through importing world class technology with a view to providing quality service for customers.
In an exclusive interview with The Ethiopian Herald, Safaricom Chief External Affairs and Regulatory Officer Matthew Harrison-Harvey stated that the company imported 300million USD worth world class equipment that would keep the operator competent in Ethiopia’s telecom business. Owing to the telecom industry’s capital intensive nature dynamism, Safaricom is going to invest 700 million USD in the next year.
Since its inception, the company has been hugely engaged in the digital transformation and digital inclusion and forge closer partnership with government agencies so as to bring significant investment and long term partnerships. Safaricom has a 15 year license which can be renewed for another 15 years and it is primarily focused on building those foundations.
Acknowledging the Ethiopian government’s role to open up the telecom industry for foreign actors and trigger competition, Harrison-Harvey noted that the decision is timely and imperative as digital services can have an impact on economies and societies. “Our products and services will contribute greatly to Ethiopia’s 10 year Prosperity Plan and bring socioeconomic improvement to help Ethiopia’s people be it in education, health and creating businesses. Apart from hitting the company’s business target, one of the key targets the company would aspire to see is economic contribution and job creation.”
As an organization that has been engaged in the telecoms sector, Safaricom set its goals, mission, targets, as per the desire it wanted to achieve in relation to customer numbers, financial performance and other normal business targets. The company would rather measure its success through discovering how many people’s lives have been positively impacted by its services, the officer emphasized.
As to him, the operator plans to launch the telecom and mobile money service, m-Pesa in April or May of the current year. To this end, Safaricom has been issuing tenders and carried out various infrastructural and other related activities.
The Ethiopian Herald April 13/2022