Ethiopia paid €30 million to France Telecom to manage Ethio Telecom(formerly known as ETC)

Ethiopia’s newly established telecom, Ethio Telecom, signed a management agreement on Thursday with France telecom. The Ethiopian government will be paying France telecom, mostly known for its Orange brand, €30 million to manage the new company for the coming two years, APA learns here.

It is the first time in history that Ethiopia is outsourcing a department of its state monopoly telecommunications service provider to an outsider- France Telecom.

The new company, Ethio Telecom, which is also totally owned by the Ethiopian government, will handle all the business activities of the former ETC-Ethiopian Telecommuniation Corporation.

The government came up with the decision of outsourcing ETC’s management because the corporation was not able to meet the demands of the fast growing east African country.

Debretsion G/Mariam, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, told journalists that the government will pay some 30 million euro to France Telecom.

“The Ethiopian government has found it necessary to involve the world-class telecom operator with viable experience and capability in the sector so as to render world standard telecom services,” said Debretsion.

“All the current employees of ETC will be on the payroll until the last person will be redeployed in the new company,” said Debretsion, assuring several thousands of employees (24, 000) of ETC, which are yet to be employed in the Ethio Telecom at the moment.

According to the agreement, France Telecom will strive to improve and modernize Ethio Telecom’s overall business aspect through implementing new organizational structure, better work process.

The minister also stressed that there is no way that the government is going to privatize the currently 100 percent state-owned telecom services in Ethiopia, at least in the near future.

 APA