Staff Reporter
The newly appointed Vodacom central region managing executive Evah Mthimunye has suggested the government should partner with the private sector in the expansion of networks in remote areas so that all communities across the country could have fair access to means of communication.
She told a virtual roundtable with media from the central region on Wednesday that it remains quite expensive to cover some areas because of their topology and the potential business they can eventually get after covering them, hence it was important for the government to come in and invest.
The central region includes the Free State and the Northern Cape provinces.
“Our approach has to completely change,” said Mthimunye in response to a question from The Free Stater.
“The private sector cannot do it alone. You need to have a public-private partnership.
“We need to bring together strategies from government in terms of digital transformation of the provinces and what we as the private sector are actually driving.
“We believe those two should be aligned.”
Mthimunye said the two provinces have been largely left behind in terms of coverage and it was important this changes to promote development.
“The Northern Cape is quite big and to invest in such a vast region for transmission, it is quite costly,” she said.
“At the same time unemployment is quite high, meaning affordability becomes a challenge for the customers.”
“We don’t want to leave the two provinces behind. We want to bring them into the digital economy,” the regional executive added.
She also wants educational institutions and students in particular to have better access to technology.
The virtual roundtable was to announce the company’s interim results for the period ending September 30.
Vodacom recorded a 7.8 percent revenue growth to R47.8 billion for the six months.
The group added 4.1 million customers over the period and now boasts close to 120 million customers including Safaricom.
Data customers alone now stand at 63.1 million, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced many people to work from home.