CTO CHAIRSHIP :How TZ will benefit  

MINISTER for Information, Communication and Information Technology Nape Nnauye has said that election of Tanzania as the chair of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) will boost the country’s efforts towards embracing digital economy.

The minister said that the election of Tanzania to the post will help the country in building the digital economy by cooperating with other countries.

“It is true, Tanzania was elected as the chair of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) on Friday in the 60th session of the CTO Council, London UK,” Nape said.

He said the position provides an opportunity to Tanzania to provide its contribution in leading member countries to use the opportunities and work on challenges facing the communication sector.

Nape told the ‘Sunday News’ that Tanzania will benefit from various opportunities including capacity building programmes in the communication sector.

He said the election of Tanzania to the position is an indication that the country is performing well in communication sector at national and international level, something that has built trust to other nations.

“This is an  honour to our country … on digital economy  this is an indication that  we are performing well  in building digital economy and we have now been given additional responsibilities  of cooperating with  our colleagues  in  the  Commonwealth  in building the digital economy,” Nape said.

He added that the position also provides an opportunity for Tanzania to contribute in addressing various challenges facing the communication sector.

He highlighted some of the challenges that will be addressed as including the cost of communication services for member states and the world in general and ensuring the speed of global technological changes match with system changes.

As CTO   chair, Tanzania will lead members of the Commonwealth to address the challenge of cybersecurity, communication infrastructure in rural areas, and the cost of accessing modern communication devices (smart devices).

The Ministerial Alliance for Digital Nations meeting was aimed   at bringing together all the ministers responsible for telecommunications to discuss the issues of development and the changes of ICT among Commonwealth member states with meeting’s theme ‘Addressing ICT issues for Commonwealth Nations’.

According to the statistics by the communications sector regulator,-Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), telecommunication services in the country have experienced exponential growth in the last ten years, paving the way for the digital economy to take off as explained by Minister Nnauye during the ministry’s budget submission in Parliament.

The evolution signals that Tanzania’s telecom sector enjoys effective competition, particularly in the mobile segment at a time when the government has encouraged foreign participation to promote economic growth and social development.

Policy, government direction and reforms have led to the country having one of the most liberal telecom sectors in Africa. Mobile telephone subscribers in Tanzania tell it all. As of December 2021, there were seven mobile operators in Tanzania comprising Airtel, Halotel, Smile, Tigo, Tanzania Telecommunication Company Limited (TTCL), Vodacom, and Zantel.

As of December 2021, Vodacom had the largest share of telecom subscriptions with 29.4 per cent, followed by Airtel (27.2pc), Tigo (24.7pc), Halotel (13.3pc), Zantel (2pc), TTCL (3.4pc), and Smile (0.002pc) (see www.trca.go.tz). From the data it is clear that Tanzania is the second-largest telecoms market in East Africa behind Kenya with a penetration of 91 per cent of the expected total population in 2022 with 54 million mobile telephone users.