New Digital Exchanges Telephone Lines For Bo, Kenema And Lungi
By Yusuf Alghali

President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has made public his displeasure about the non-performance over the past years of the board and management of the Sierra Leone Telecommunications Company (Sierratel), charging that corporate financial malpractices had even made it impossible for the company to pay dividends to government since he became President in 1996.

Speaking at the commissioning ceremony of the new Sierratel digital telephone exchange in Bo Saturday 3rd April 2004, the President stated that in normal competitive private market conditions, such an adverse situation would be a recipe for a take-over bid, resulting in the company's new owners dismissing the non-performing management. However, as a first step, he said, government in consultation with the National Commission for Privatisation (NCP), had "injected some fresh blood into the Board with a view to bolstering its strength and thereby restructuring and streamlining the management of the company".

Continuing, the President made clear his government's recognition of the significance of the telecommunications industry both as an engine of growth and a vehicle for the transfer of information. He said this recognition had led to the formulation of a policy for the rehabilitation of Sierratel's fixed line services as far back as 2000, with the hope of facilitating the introduction of competitive cellular, mobile telephone services. "But soon afterwards government realised that Sierratel was incapable, both managerially and financially, to achieve the objectives of that policy for the modernisation of the telecommunications industry," the President went on, adding that the only option then open to it was to privatise the company and introduce a new Telecommunications Act.

He recalled that government had sought help from the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank for the process of privatising Sierratel but explained that the transaction itself collapsed in 2002 when Spectronics, one of the key potential investors for Sierratel, pulled out of the bidding process.

The Head of State, who also made reference to what he called "the lack of financial prudence and disharmony at both the Board and Management levels", said such had resulted in Sierratel being unable to meet the challenges to its market share by local cell phone operators - Celtel and Millicom - who now together have about 100,000 subscribers as opposed to Sierratel's 23,000. He maintained that financial and other irregularities in the company, brought to his attention during the course of last year, could have been contained if there was unity at both Board and Management levels, a point also echoed by the NCP chairman, Mr. A. R. Turay, who earlier decried the lack of corporate culture in many local parastatals.

In this connection however, the President urged the current management of Sierratel to adopt measures attractive to "serious external investors who could bring into the company both new money and modern technology". At the same time, he spurred the Ministry of Transport and Communications as well as the National Commission for Privatisation to expedite the enactment of the draft Telecommunications Bill, which is expected to restore public confidence and orderly competition in the industry. The President was hopeful the new measures would put a check to the current exorbitant increases in cellular mobile telephone charges.

Saturday's commissioning of the new digital telephone switch board in Bo will soon see the replacement of a total of 1300 lines of old electro-mechanical switches in Bo, Kenema and Lungi that were installed over thirty five years ago, with a four-fold increase in digital lines totalling 5,000. This new facility will make it possible for calls to be made from Bo, Kenema and Lungi by International Direct Dialling (IDD) worldwide and within the country. Internet access is also now possible to large databases globally from these three localities in Sierra Leone. In addition, telephone services have been restored at Rotifunk and Moyamba and will be followed by the refurbishment of microwave radio stations that were destroyed during the rebel war in Segbwema, Landofeh mountains, Koidu, Port Loko, Lunsar and Makeni. This, Sierratel official sources say, is to be followed by the installation of digital systems before the end of 2004.

In his statements earlier, Sierratel's Board Chairman Abu Aiah Koroma informed his audience about ongoing collaborative arrangements with Ericsson of Sweden, to include in its operations a mobile phone service and wireless land phone facilities that could be installed in remote rural communities with minimum infrastructural development.

"The successful implementation of this project will be a test of the renewed commitment of the Board and Management to raise the level of performance of Sierratel and prepare the company for meeting the challenges it now faces in a highly competitive environment," President Kabbah told a large crowd of Bo residents and Sierratel employees, who witnessed the official commissioning of the new digital facility.

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