Zambia’s government has announced plans to sell three-quarters of its stake in the state-owned Zambia Telecommunications Corporation (Zamtel) to a private investor and eventually float the remaining 25% on the Lusaka Stock Exchange. President Rupiah Banda of Zambia said the partial privatization of Zamtel was the only way to resolve the financial problems the company is facing.

It is estimated that Zamtel needs a capital injection of around $200 million.

Although the privatization will result in the liberalization of the international call gateway, to the benefit of private operators, no new operator license will be offered in Zambia until Zamtel has returned to economic viability.

An attempt to sell the stake earlier this year to a private equity group became mired in political controversy after a judicial investigation was ordered into Communications and Transport Minister, Dora Siliya. She was alleged to have engaged a private consultancy firm based in the Cayman Islands to carry out an evaluation of the assets of Zamtel without following tender procedures and ignoring legal advice in the process.

The country currently has three mobile network operators with the following market shares; Zain (70%), MTN (20%) and Zamtel (10%); this is based on Q1 statistics from the Mobile World subscriber database.

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Zambia Telecommunications Corporation (Zamtel)
Lusaka Stock Exchange

Source(s):
Cellular News