Rwandatel subscribers up 20%

Rwandatel, currently locked in a row with telecom regulator, Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA), has said that its active mobile subscriber base grew by 20 percent from 600,000 subscribers by the end of last year to 721,000. The figures contradict RURA’s official report, which was released in September last year, where Rwandatel had lost its position as Rwanda’s second largest mobile operator by market share to TIGO Rwanda. The RURA report said that Rwandatel has 306,706 subscribers, TIGO Rwanda 685,393 and MTN Rwanda 2,546,983. Rwandatel’s CEO, Issiaka Maiga Hamidou, said the growth is a result of new promotions, which represent low calling rates on the market. He announced the figures while awarding five lucky winners of motor bikes in the operator’s ongoing “bonne anne” promotion on Friday last week. The promotion ends this month. “This promotion is part of our continuous efforts to reward our clients, reflecting the customer-centric strategy to walk with our clients in this journey,” he said. Hamidou also announced that the operator intends to roll-out Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) technology, a telecommunications protocol that provides fixed and mobile Internet access. The company says its waiting for central bank approval to launch its Mobile Money service dubbed ‘M-Kash’. “It is not easy for telecoms to get such licenses because they are not used to the financial industry,” he added. Rwandatel is currently embroiled in a row with RURA, where the former is accused of allegedly failing to honour its contractual obligation. In a recent interview with Business Times, the CEO said that the telecom firm is receiving unfair treatment from the regulator albeit investing a lot of money to revamp and restructure a company that has twice changed ownership. Unofficial reports suggest that the row is a result of conflict of interest from some RURA auditors who are former employees of Rwandatel. “I can’t say they (RURA) are trying to tarnish Rwandatel’s name but what I know is that there are some former Rwandatel staff that are working with RURA. They were retrenched during the reshuffle of the company,” he said. “These people are the ones in charge of auditing Rwandatel and they have a little conflict of interest. However, I don’t feel what is happening is intentionally made on us,” Hamidou said. Ends