Minister for Information, Transport and Communications
Musalia Mudayadi has called on African countries to find home grown solutions
to Africa's telecommunications problems.The minister said unless Africa's
telecommunications system was improved, better economic development on the
continent would remain a mirage.Mudavadi was spealcing during an African
Telecommunications -Union (ATU) handing over ceremony.
Mudavadi was speaking during an African Telecommunications Union (ATU) handing
over ceremony. Kenya's Jan Mutai took over the secretary general's office
from Minemba Mamadou Keita.Mudavadi said emerging private sector players
were more profit driven than socially inclined in their business plans.
"Without positive in-puts from ATU, this kind of scenario may end up
perpetuating the wide gap between the haves and have nots in the telecommunications
sector," he said.Mutai was elected to head the 46 member union by African
Ministers for communication who met in South Africa last December.He said
policy reform and market restructuring in Africa offered high potential
for growth in the telecommunications sector.The new secretary general said
Africa needed US$ 60 billion to bring the continent to the global average
teledensity of 1 0 per cent.
Mutai, who is a former Managing Director of the defunct Kenya Posts and
Telecommunication, said despite having 12 percent of the global population,
Africa has only two percent of the world's telephone lines.He said the convergence
of digital technologies globally, had made it irrelevant for Africa to build
separate telecommunication networks and has the potential to leap forward
in the global inforrnation economy.
Mutai called for the widening of the membership base through admission of
the private sector network operators into the union.He called for evolution
of policy and regulatory frameworks to enhance investment flows into national
and continental networks.
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