Gambia News : Gambia unveils new plans for national telecom giant

Dec 03,2008 00:00 by lamin

Gambian government has unveiled new recovery plans for its troubled national telecommunication giant, Gambia Telecommunications Company (GAMTEL), competent sources in Banjul informed PANA Tuesday.

Among the new plans was the setting up of new board of directors, whose members were inaugurated Monday and was tasked with giving direction to the troubled company and its subsidiary GAMCELL which deals in cell phone business in the country.

“We want to move forward, we want to bring back the legacy/glory that GAMTEL and GAMCEL had,” said Gambia’s Information and Communication Secretary, (Minister) Fatim Badgie, during the inauguration ceremony.

“GAMTEL was one of the most liquidified companies in the past, second to none in the whole of Africa. We lost this and now we want to regain this lost glory.”

Other areas on government’s new strategic plan deal with the need for a “landing point” for the country, the need for maintaining “government monopoly over international gateway” and the like.

Meanwhile, the management of GAMTEL has changed hands several times in the recent times resulting in its take over by a Lebanese-owned company, Spectrum Group, in 2007.

However, barely two months ago, Gambian government revoked the deal it had signed with Spectrum, thereby taking back a company that has become a national pride for the tiny West African nation.