TANZANIA TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANY LTD. BOSS SAYS DSE LISTING PREPARATIONS ARE GOING ON WELL

TTCL Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Waziri Kindamba addressing the media at a past event.

The Tanzania Telecommunication Company Limited (TTCL) has refuted false reports that it asked for time extension to restructure before listing some of its shares on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE).

The TTCL Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Waziri Kindamba said in a statement issued in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the state-owned telecom firm was complying with the requirements of the law and government directives without excuse.

“TTCL is effectively implementing the Electronic and Postal Communications Act (EPOCA) 2010 to offload some of the shares for public consumption at the DSE,” he said in the statement.

The new Finance Bill enforced on July last year require Tanzanian telecom companies to list at the equity market before the end of the year 2016. CMSA Public Relations Officer Mr Charles Shirima told the ‘Daily News’ in an interview that there were communication going on between the state-owned telephone company and the regulator regarding preparations for offloading its shares on DSE. “There is formal communication between the regulator and the state owned telecom firm to fulfill the requirement of the law,” he said.

He said there will be no option for the telecom companies operating in the country but to comply with the law that requires listing some of shares at the equity market. TTCL have started arrangements as per the law and has been communicating to the regulator over the progress.

Apart from TTCL, other landline and mobile operators in the country include Airtel, Smart, Halotel, Tigo, Vodacom, and Zantel. Only three mobile operators including Airtel, Tigo and Vodacom have met the deadline by submitting prospectus to the CMSA as preparations for listing at the bourse.

According to the Finance Bill, network facilities, network services and application services licensees including mobile operators will have to list 25 per cent of their shares. However, for content service licensee, the minimum listing requirement is 51 per cent of the shares.

Tanzania is the second largest telecoms market in East Africa behind Kenya with a penetration of 79 per cent of the total population in 2015 with 40m users.