African governments are losing their grip on the telecoms industry, making way for private capital to reduce an urban-rural disparity in access to information vital for development, a Kenyan
minister said on Tuesday.
”Liberalisation steps taken by African governments over the last 10 years in the telecommunications sector has reduced their influence and played a significant role in the development of Africa,” Transport and Communication Minister Musalia Mudavadi told an opening session of the African Computing and Telecommunication (ACT) Summit 2002.
Mudavadi said the fast-growing private sector had brought much-needed capital and expertise to reduce the disparity in information availability between urban and rural areas, where 80% of Africa’s population resides.
”This is crucial to enable the population of up to 80% in the rural areas to be empowered with information, thus contributing more towards national development,” Mudavadi said.
He urged African governments to set up a rural
telecommunications development fund that ”would lend support to the private sector to operate in areas considered unprofitable but socially benefitable.”
”We in Kenya have acquired leased-line Internet connections to increase access to government information by the public and increase Kenyan content on the Web,” Mudavadi added.
The head of the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK), Samuel Chepkonga, urged Africa’s public and private sectors to work together in harmonising reforms and regulatory measures to create an environment supporting development.
”The prevailing market failures and equity investiment
considerations suggest a role for market-based subsidies to promote access of telecommunications to Africa’s rural population,” Chepkonga added.
Chepkonga said developing contries still lacked an efficient legal and policy framework to enable them exploit emerging technologies.
”The stark reality is that the access of many African countries to telecommunication tools for knowledge and creation of wealth is still highly inequitable, despite a wide recognition that these infrastructures have (had) a positive and significant impact on
economic growth and poverty reduction,” he added.
The four-day ACT summit, which is jointly organised with the East African Internet Forum, has brought together 48 delegations of experts from more than 16 countries.
Africa currently has around 20-million fixed-line telephones, up from 10-million in 1992, and
26-million mobile phones, also up from zero in the same period, with 104 cellular operators.
The number of fixed lines is expected to fall further, with South Africa, which has already lost more than one million fixed lines since 2000, heading the downward trend, according to official statistics. – Sapa-AFP