Vodafone Group’s consortium and MTN Group have submitted bids for a permit to operate in Ethiopia, far less than the government of Africa’s second most populous country, and those with knowledge of the matter. Said.

A consortium of Vodafone, including Safaricom in Kenya and Vodafone Group, a South African unit of the British airline, has bid $ 850 million, according to people who refused to identify because the results have not yet been published. submitted. According to people, MTN, which is affiliated with the Silk Road Fund in China, has provided $ 600 million.

People say the government is currently considering deciding whether to accept one or both bids or cancel and resume the process. They said the announcement on this issue would be made in a few days.

“I think we have received a strong offer,” Ethiopian Communications Secretary-General Balcha Leva said in a television presentation Thursday. “But there was a 29.4% difference between the best offer and the second highest offer,” he said, deciding whether the government would cancel and resume the process, or grant one or both licenses. He added that he would decide.

Vodacom and MTN representatives declined to comment when contacted on Friday.

The government has spent a lot of time in the license bidding process and sold part of the government-owned exclusive Ethiopian state-owned utility as part of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s plan to open up Ethiopia’s state economy to more foreign capital. intend to do something.

Investors have longed for Ethiopia, one of the last remaining large telecommunications markets in the world, with a population of 110 million. However, their enthusiasm was curbed by the authorities’ temporary exclusion of lucrative mobile money and financial technology services from their licenses. According to the government, this decision could have reduced the value of the license by about $ 500 million.

Source: News24