By Politico Staff Writer
The Government of Sierra Leone has denied claims that it has sold the Sierra Leone Cable Network Limited (SALCAB).
In a statement released by the Ministry of Information on Saturday, the authorities explained that they were working on a plan to unbundle the functions of the company instead.
"The superintending Ministry, as part of its overarching policy and institutional reform, informed by Cluster 3.5 of the National Development Plan and the Ministry’s National Digital Transformation policy, has put a proposal to Cabinet for the unbundling of the National Fibre Optic asset comprising the Submarine Cable and the National Terrestrial Backbone presently manned by SALCAB,” the Information Ministry said in the statement.
The statement added that in view of the above, a cabinet subcommittee comprising of the Ministry of Finance, Office of the Attorney General, the Public Private Partnership Unit and the Ministry of Information and Communications, had been set up to work out the technical details for the unbundling and to resubmit a proposal to the cabinet for final decision.
The Information Ministry also denied claims that a private company is now in charge of SALCAB. It said however that the process of unbundling would involve private contractors, for which government will follow due procedure.
Private running of the company will be done in the later stages of the entire process, it explained.
The government says the unbundling is part of ways it has envisaged to increase digital penetration across the country in line with investments that have already been made through funds from development partners like World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank.
SALCAB is the state's only cable netwotk company. It's future has been the subject of debate in the last few months.
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