ZICTA CLOSES BIDS FOR 4TH MOBILE PROVIDER

Thu, 21 Dec 2017 13:06:51 +0000

By Buumba Chimbulu

THE Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) has officially closed the bidding process for companies interested in taking part in the investment of the fourth mobile service provider expected to come on board in mid-2018.

According to ZICTA director-general, Patrick Mutimushi, they closed the bidding process on Monday with two international companies expressing interest to invest in the telecommunication sector.

“The closing date was Monday and thereafter there will be evaluations according to the lay down procedure by Zambia Public Procurement Authority (ZPPA), once that is done then we will announce,” he said.

Mr. Mutimushi explained in an interview that it would take ZICTA and the committee to be put in place about a month or two to announce the winner of the bidding process.

“As of close, two bidding companies had successfully submitted their bids, normally, when a bid closes and we organise ourselves, probably we put up an evaluation committee that will assist,

“When you issue an international tender, it will run for four to six weeks which we did so there is another month or two to be able to finance everything,” Mr. Mutimushi said.

Recently, Government announced that Zambia was during the course of mid-2018 expected to have a fourth mobile service provider which was anticipated to shake up the telecommunication industry in the country by providing more competition.

Minister of Transport and Communication, Brian Mushimba, said Government was looking for an investor who would prepare adequately into growing the network and provide quality service including in rural areas.

“To manage the process and not get 600 application that will take you 600 years to process, ZICTA put an application fee on the tendering process, they had to pay US$100 to get the tender documents. So only those that had the muscle and capacity came forward,” Mr. Mushimba said.