The Ethiopian government has been planning to sell off 40% of its holdings in Ethio-Telecom, a state-owned telecom company, since 2021.
In public records, the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance lauded Ethio-near-monopoly Telecoms in Ethiopia’s telecommunications market.
The company’s outstanding financial performance and reliable infrastructure, according to the announcement, “will give any investor a major competitive edge.”
According to a tweet from the Ministry of Finance, Ethiopia is looking for investors that can “add value to the Business by bringing in best practices in terms of operations, infrastructure management, and next-generation technical capabilities.”
Despite the fact that outsourcing the construction of new telecom towers and other infrastructure to specialized tower management businesses would have lowered operating costs for telcos, the government initially refused to allow the new telcos to do so in 2020 when it asked telecom companies to apply for two licenses to compete against Ethio Telecom.
New telcos were also not allowed to offer mobile money services, which was a major selling point for the country of Ethiopia.
Unfortunately, this resulted in a dismal tender process with only two proposals submitted.
The first comes from MTN of South Africa, and the second is a joint effort of Safaricom, Vodafone, and Vodacom.
Safaricom launched its operations in Ethiopia in October of last year.
Ethio-Telecom was valued at $1.5 billion in 2022.
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Ethiopia has announced the commencement of a tender process to sell a 40% stake in Ethio Telecom