18 October 2019

Angola has launched a new tender for the award of the fourth Unified Global Title for the provision of public electronic communications services, according to a statement issued by the country’s Ministry of Finance.

It also said that this public tender is restricted by prior qualification and has two phases.

The first is for submission of applications until November 8th for qualification of interested parties, while the second is for submission of proposals by qualified candidates.

The government department has separated qualified and non-qualified applicants, the former will be invited to submit technical and financial proposals within 60 days.

Furthermore, an international tender will be held to attract the interest of foreign telecom operators.

The result of the previous public tender was annulled by a decision of President João Lourenço on the grounds that the winning company, Angolan Telstar, had not presented the balance sheet and income statement for the past three years, as required in the tender documents.

Telstar was founded in January 2018 with a capital stock of 200,000 kwanzas which was equivalent to US$625 at the time of going to press.

Its shareholders are made up of two people – General Manuel João Carneiro (90%) and businessman António Cardoso Mateus (10%).

Reports in Angola said that South Africa’s MTN Group had dropped out on the grounds that the international public tender was “flawed”.

Three companies currently provide the southern African nation with telecom services.

Unitel has a market share of 80%, Movicel has the remaining 20% and Angola Telecom, with practically no share and of which 45% is due to be privatised.