ZCZC
BCN-10
ANGOLA-ECONOMY-TELECOM
Angolan leader cancels newly-awarded mobile phone licence
LUANDA, April 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Angola’s President Joao Lourenco has
cancelled a mobile phone licence awarded to a little-known startup company
due to “non-compliance”, his office said Thursday.
Local company Telstar was last week awarded a license to operate the
country’s fourth mobile network, valued at $120-million-dollars (106 million
euros), beating 26 other local and international firms.
The tender will be reopened, said a statement from the presidency.
Telstar was established only in January 2018. Listed among its
shareholders are army general Manuel Joao Carneiro and entrepreneur Antonio
Cardoso Mateus.
According to Angolan weekly Expansao, the company has links to Mundo
TelecomunicaØoes, an operator owned by several former ministers or advisers
to ex-president Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
The profitable mobile telecommunications sector is currently shared
between two private firms, Movicel and Unitel, the country’s leading
operator.
Isabel dos Santos, the former president’s oldest daughter — believed to
be the richest woman in Africa — holds a controlling stake in Unitel while
her half-sister, Welwitschia dos Santos, holds a stake in Movicel.
A third operator, the state-owned company Angola Telecom, which is
partially privatised, has recently tried to make inroads into the sector.
Lourenco swept to power in 2018 after pledging to clean up Angola’s
endemic graft, tackle nepotism, and revive its listless economy.
He is opening up the telecommunications sector as part of plans to boost
the economy of sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer, struggling
to recover from the impact of a sharp drop in crude prices in 2014.
BSS/AFP/HR/0955