President Samia Suluhu Hassan (pictured) said in a speech in Dar es Salaam, the capital, that Tanzania Telecommunications Company (TTCL) should focus on areas where it can perform effectively.
She said: “Frankly speaking, TTCL has failed in the [mobile] telecoms business. Let them focus on providing broadband.”
TTCL has just a 3% share of a market of 60.2 million subscribers, according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Tanzania (TCRA). It competes with Vodacom with 30%, Airtel with 28%, Tigo with 26% and Halotel with 13%.
Samia said TTCL should not operate mobile telecoms and broadband at the same time. If it did “there is no fairness in the competition”, she said.
She said that there is a need to review the operations of TTCL to find out if it can continue to offer mobile telecom services competitively or it should focus in other areas.
“I gave this directive last year; I do not know why it has not been implemented,” she said, according to Tanzanian media.
The regulator reported that TTCL had a target to register more than 100,000 new customers in the Dar es Salaam region during the period under review, but it only managed 40,000 customers. It was also failing to resolve customers’ complaints, taking up to 405 days for some, against a target of seven days.
