MTN Rwanda has announced suspension of commercial advertising to inject the budget in the Covid-19 fight. In a statement released Monday morning, the telecommunication giant said it is committing its September marketing resources to a new campaign encouraging people to wear masks as one of the measures to curb the coronavirus spread. MTN Group is launching the Wear It for Me campaign across its 21 African and Middle East markets. At the start of August, Africas largest telecoms operator announced plans to exit the Middle East markets including Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan to concentrate solely on Africa. “We are going to suspend commercial advertising for the next four weeks, dedicating our communication channels to the dissemination of Covid-19 related information as well as awareness on mask-wearing through the Wear It for Me campaign,” said Mitwa Kaemba Ngambi, MTN Rwanda CEO. MTN’s campaign, according to the statement, will feature voices of unnamed influential figures in communities and across the continent to spread the word. The company did not reveal its monthly ad spending now directed to the pandemic. MTN Rwanda donated Rwf100 million to the Economic recovery fund in June. The economic recovery fund was launched June 10, 2020 with an initial Rwf100 billion, aimed at mitigating effects of Covid-19 to businesses. In May this year, MTN Group slashed its capital expenditure guidance for 2020 to between US$1.1 billion and US$1.2 billion from US$1.5 billion to ensure the resilience and capacity of its networks amid the coronavirus crisis. However, according to the Group’s earnings of the first half of 2020, MTN Rwanda grew at 12 percent and it projects to maintain the rate.
