By Charles Chacha
Dar
es Salaam — The Tanzania Telecommunication Corporation Limited (TTCL)
has set aside Sh640 billion for projects aimed at expanding and
upgrading its network around the country.
The revelation was
made on Friday by the firm's board chairman, Mr Omari Nundu, during the
Korea-Tanzania ICT Cooperation seminar held in Dar es Salaam.
The money would be
spent on rolling out 3G or 4G mobile sites countrywide, replacing power
and air conditioning systems, upgrading the transport network and
submarine cables, improving rural communications, among others.
"TTCL will also
spend Sh26.38 billion on operations and business support systems,
including upgrading the mobile money platform and the billing system,"
Mr Nundu revealed.
According to Mr
Nundu, TTCL will also spend $5 million on corporate customer projects
and an additional Sh11 billion on value added services such as public
cloud solutions, anti-spam systems, cashless and paperless services as
well as network security enhancement.
During the
occasion, Mr Nundu hailed the Republic of Korea for being at the
forefront of bringing socio-economic change to the country through its
significant contribution in the Information and Communication Technology
sector.
He said TTCL had
come along way and in spite of past challenges, the firm was now on
solid footing. He cited as an example the establishment of the e-payment
gateway system and growth of T-Money, its mobile money facility, among
others, for improving the firm's competitiveness.
Mr Nundu revealed
that in the 2017/18 fiscal year the corporation's profits grew by 20 per
cent to Sh28 billion. As a result, the state-owned telecom was on track
to paying dividends to the government, he said.
"There are rival
firms that rarely pay dividends to the government even though the state
owns over 40 per cent of their total stake," he said, calling on
Tanzanians to take pride in the firm as it was in their best interest.
Speaking at the
seminar on Tanzania's strategy for customs efficiency and the use of
Tanzania Customs Integrated System (TANCIS), Tanzania Revenue
Authority's director of Tax Payer Education Richard Kayombo said the
authority's adoption of web-based transactions had cut down
bureaucracies, the amount of paperwork and corruption.
He hailed the
Korean government and the country's firms, including the Customs
Uni-Pass International Agency (CUPIA), for helping to set up the TANCIS
system.
"We have seen rapid
improvement in efficiency and transparency. In the past, clearing
agents used to collude with our clients to lie to TRA, but since the
adoption of the system we have gotten rid of corruption as people at the
opposite ends of a transaction may not necessarily know each other," Mr
Kayombo noted.
Earlier when
opening the seminar, Korean ambassador to Tanzania Song Geum-Young said
the Korea-Tanzania ICT Cooperation was testimony that the two countries'
26 years of diplomatic cooperation was growing from strength to
strength.
The event was
attended by, among others, Zanzibar House of Representatives' Budget
Committee chairman Mohammed Mohammed, TTCL director general Waziri
Kidamba, director for Communications in the ministry of Infrastructure,
Communication and Transportation of Zanzibar as well as representatives
of the Korean business community.
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