17 May 2012
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Botswana privatises nearly half its telecoms company

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Botswana 's Public Enterprises Evaluation and Privatisation Agency will sell between 40% and 49% of the state-owned Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC).

Advisers to oil the wheels of the privatisation are currently being sought. Confirmation of Botswana 's intentions came from an advertisement in Business Day, the South African financial daily. The advert declared that 5% of BTC's shares will be offered to the BTC workforce, and that anything between 15%-25% will be retained, for later sale, in a privatisation trust fund.

At present BTC is the monopoly supplier of fixed-line telephony but both a shift to the private sector and a process of deregulation are high on the agenda. Prior to the change in ownership BTC will have to acquire a mobile licence. As proof of Botswana's aims, her Finance Minister Baledzi Gaolathe said last month that she will not only allow private ISPs to supply VoIP as of August 1 this year but will permit mobile operators Mascom and Orange to exploit in company transmission links instead of BTC's.

A colleague of Baledzi Gaolathe, Communications Minister estimates that the full privatisation process will take three years. Tenders must be submitted by August 30 2006.

* Orange is a France Telecom unit while Mascom is owned by South African mobile operator MTN. World Bank statistics reveal that Botswana had 79 telephone lines per 1,000 people and 348 mobile subscribers per 1,000 people in 2004.

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