Ethiopia’s telecommunications regulator awarded one operating license to a consortium led by Kenya’s Safaricom and Japan’s Sumitomo, Brook Taye, a senior adviser at the Finance Ministry, said on Saturday, May 22.
According to Brook, the consortium, which includes Safaricom’s parent companies Vodacom and Vodafone, as well as the British development finance agency CDC Group, paid Sh91.9 billion for the license.
They edged out MTN International Mauritius, a subsidiary of South Africa’s MTN Group which had offered Sh64.9 billion for the contract. The two were the only companies to successfully bid for the licence.
Nine other companies including Orange, Snail Mobile, Etisalat, Axian, Telkom SA, Saudi Telecom Company, Electromecha International Projects, Kandu Global Communications and Liquid Telecom had expressed interest in the auction.
The nine are said to have dropped their interests in the latter stages of the process, citing lack of transparency on the fees demanded by the Ethiopian government.
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