By Mohamed T. Massaquoi
Traditional voice and voice-related products continue to lead in the revenue composition of the Sierra Leone telecommunications industry, pointing to a low rate of internet penetration, figures from the Sierra Leone Cable Limited (SALCAB) show.
Voice related products account for 65 % of revenue, while data contributes only 22 %, according to the figures. The remaining 13 percent comes from VAS (Value Added Services) or content.
In spite of this, says Ishmael Kabbay Jr, Managing Director of SALCAB, the telecoms market is growing albeit at a slow pace. He blamed the distribution models of operators, which mainly rely on microwave as the primary backhaul, as among critical challenges creating market expansion barriers. This, according to Kabbay, means that 25 %, (1.7million people) is completely uncovered by either voice or internet service.
"1.7 million people of the overall country's population is completely uncovered, of which 78 chiefdoms are underserved and uncovered,” Kabbay told journalists on Friday, at the unveiling of a new brand logo for SALCAB. He added that broadband penetration of the country remained at the low end at 2%, noting that the remaining 11% of the market was serviced through mobile data delivered on cell phones and dongles.
The SALCAB boss noted that the operating cost of running the diesel sites of these operators doesn’t commensurate to the micro revenue market pool due to weak rural population cluster, low revenue per user, and shallow digital literacy rate.
SALCAB is a wholly government owned Optical Fiber infrastructure company incorporated as a limited liability company in 2012. It operates as a regulated wholesale bandwidth and other related value added services provider to the ICT Industry. It says its aim is to make Broadband Internet affordable for all.
SALCAB is also the partner of the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) Submarine Cable in Sierra Leone, responsible for the operation and commercialization of wholesale International Services on ACE Submarine Cable, as well as the Provision of National Wholesale Services over the ECOWAN network.
The agency’s data show that there were a total of 4.2 million telecoms service users in Sierra Leone, with average revenue per user of US$3 a month and a total monthly revenue pool of $12.6 million.
According to Kabbay, majority of these subscribers are multi-sim users, a user trend which has triggered an intense market competition among operators.
The communication sector of Sierra Leone contributes 3.8 of its GDP, with telecoms being a major driver.
According to the International Telecommunications Union, only 3 out of 100 people in Sierra Leone have an internet connection, out of the population of 7 million.
To re-engineer the business models of the submarine and the terrestrial infrastructure, SALCAB has therefore announced a series of products, including reduction in tariffs and introduction of services that it hopes will attract its customers.
The company says it has notably instituted a 48 percent reduction in the cost of bandwidth for IP transit, and introduced IP lease circuits. It also introduced ‘Connect Plus’, a service that will allow its customers to have the opportunity to subscribe to IP transit in major cities with service quality marched to what is currently offered at the cable landing station in Freetown.
Kabbay said in the next couple of months SALCAB will be upgrading the entire country's capacity from 83G of data to 260G. He also revealed, as a long term project, their desire to connect an additional 500 schools to boost the Free Quality Education policy of the new government.
SALCAB is one of about a dozen government parastatals that had a change of management with the assumption of office of new president Julius Maada Bio.
Friday’s event, which was held at the SALCAB landing station in the west end of Freetown, was the first media interaction with the new management since the appointment of its Board Chairman, Sorie Fofana.
Mr Fofana lamented the poor state of the company which he said operated under a “complete lack of accountability” under the last administration of Ernest Bai Koroma.
He said in spite of the government's pending commission of inquiry targeting key institutions and line ministries like SALCAB, they have deemed it necessary to institute a special audit as strategy to bring
out some of the flaws they inherited.
"Like in many government institutions, we inherited a heap of mess at SALCAB. Our responsibility now is to clear the mess that was left behind by the previous management team. We have called in special auditors, to help us do a proper audit of what we inherited," he said.
According to Fofana, from an initial baseline review they carried, they found out that there was no proper system in place in the management of resources at the SALCAB, including "no asset register, and no internal audit mechanism."
Abass Sallieu Kamara, Deputy Secretary at the Ministry of Information and Communication, reiterated government’s commitment to developing the telecoms sector. He said the ministry of information and
communication particularly lays premium on the activities of SALCAB given its role in all this.
"ICT as enabler and SALCAB at the center of the game, anything that makes them efficient in the right direction is welcome by the ministry and the government," he said.
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