By Business Standard Reporter
STRONG ties forged between the public and private sectors are essential for businesses growth that can in turn support the government efforts to fund numerous social development projects across all sectors of an economy.
In a recent tour to Vodacom Tanzania, the Minister for state in the Prime minister office in charge of Investment, Angela Kairuki commended Vodacom's social investment programme in health, Agriculture, education including numerous collaborations with the public sector in order to widen impact of a number of initiatives to a broader Tanzanian community.
"I commend Vodacom Tanzania for the investment made in the country in developing e-learning with their Instant schools programme that enables students and teachers to access education materials from primary to secondary schools free of charge," she said
Investing over 1.6tri/- between 2012 to March 2020, Vodacom has been at the front seat of development and innovations in mobile services.
With over 15 million subscribers, Vodacom boasts a 32 per cent market share. M-Pesa, Vodacom's mobile money product is also a leading brand with mobile money customer market share of 39.3 per cent.
Vodacom also paid a total of 1.9 trillion shillings in taxes in the past five years to 2020. Growing at an impressive average growth rate of 8 per cent, Vodacom's annual total tax contribution reached 435bn/- in 2020.
In addition, Vodacom in partnership with UCSAF has invested over 390 million shillings in provision of computers, routers, data and training to bring digital technology in primary and secondary schools across the country reaching 16,555 students as part of its social investment in digitising Tanzania.
The Managing director for Vodacom Tanzania Hisham Hendi said that closer cooperation between the private and public sectors provides opportunities to unlock some of the challenges with a view to develop businesses in the country by having in place conducive conditions that will allow growth benefiting the public and private sectors and impacting the larger community as well.
"Vodacom is the only mobile operator to comply with the Tanzania's Electronic and Postal Communications Act No. 3/2010 (EPOCA), requiring domestic telecoms companies to issue at least 25 per cent of their shares on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE).
The listing, in 2017 allowed more than 40,000 Tanzanians to own shares. The listing also provides transparency, both in terms of business and taxes. Vodacom continues to be a major investor, taxpayer, employer, and purchaser of local goods and services contributing to real value creation in Tanzania."
"Our business and social investment programmes are focused on areas that are also in line with the government's national development agenda and the international sustainable development goals in Health, Education and Agriculture". Hisham commented.
The Minister's visit at Vodacom Tanzania today included a Managing Director of Tanzania Investment Centre TIC, Dr Madu Issac, representatives from the ministry of Works, Infrastructure and communication and Dar es Salaam regional investment office.
The visit included a dialogue with Vodacom's Executive Committee where discussion centered on how to improve the investment and operational climate for businesses in the telecommunication sector including issues on Compliance, Taxes, Regulations, and Infrastructure and advertising rates, fees and fines.
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