Tanzania commits more support to telecom operators

MARA: THE government has pledged to continue partnering with telecommunications operators in the country by providing them with financial and equipment subsidies for the construction of communication towers to ensure 80 per cent of Tanzanians living in rural areas have access to communication services.

The commitment was expressed on Friday by Minister for Information, Communication and Information Technology, Nape Nnauye in a meeting with employees of the institutions under his ministry in Musoma, Mara Region.

“The government’s intention is to ensure that every Tanzanian, regardless of their financial status or location, have access to communication service for the well-being of their life,” the minister asserted.

“Tanzania has 70 million active sim cards while other people have two to five simcards … we want people to use them smoothly whenever they are,” he added.

“There are more mobile phone lines than the number of Tanzanians,” he said, adding that the government’s goal is to ensure that people can use their mobile phones wherever they are, instead of climbing on a mountain or a tree to get communication services,” he said.

He also said that farmers should be able to use their phones for economic activities, such as checking crop prices, while in their villages.

According to Nape, the steps taken by the government are a manifestation of the good intentions of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who instructed his ministry to ensure that every Tanzanian has access to communication services.

Despite the measures taken by the government, he said there are still some areas which have not been connected to communication services due to poor road infrastructure.

“There are places in Singida where we had to transport equipment by donkeys and cattle,” he said.

He instructed the Tanzania National Roads Agency (TANROADS) and the Tanzania Rural and Urban Roads Agency (TARURA) in Mara Region to ensure that before they build roads, they prioritise areas where the government is going to build towers to improve communication services.

He also directed the Local Government Authorities (LGAs)’s executives to speed up the process of issuing permits on time particularly to the locations where the towers are expected to be built.

“The construction of a tower in Ngorongoro area took solely 29 days while in other areas the towers are built in 12 months due to bureaucracy in issuance of permits and land,” he said.

In a related development, he instructed government executives to ensure towers built are connected to electricity to reduce operation cost.

“The operating cost of a tower by using fuel is more than 1.8m/-/- per month while with electricity the cost stands 400,000/- per month,” he underlined.

He added that the government through the Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF) will continue to provide communication services in rural areas where there are more than 80 per cent of people who need the service.

For his part, Director of the Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation (TTCL) Engineer Peter Ulanga said the entity has succeeded to connect 350 new customers to fibre service while 346 customers are waiting to be connected.

On her part, UCSAF Chief Executive officer, Justina Mashiba noted that, according to the statistics from Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), 99.7 per cent of residents in Mara region have access to communication services.

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