GNA – Mobile telecommunications giant MTN Group, is spearheading digital solutions for Africa’s progress, as part of its strategic vision 2025.
Mr Selorm Adadevoh, the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, said MTN recently announced its Ambition 2025 Strategic Vision with a focus on the African continent; the reason the group is exiting some of the other markets.
“But what is important is not so much the focus on the continent but what that focus means? It means sustained investment,” Mr Adadevoh stated in his presentation at the MTN Media Forum in Accra.
He said this year MTN Ghana was investing over $200 million in infrastructure to expand access.
“Typically, when companies are 25 years old, they start to slow down, and most of you have heard the phrase the cash cow. When you get to 25 years like I have invested almost six billion dollars in my infrastructure, why don’t I just sit down, relax and then milk the cash cow? That is what the cash cow is.”
The Chief Executive Officer said the infrastructure investment was the company’s highest investment in any single year in the last 10 to 15 years.
“And that just tells you that our appetite is to continue to take the risk, our belief in the Ghana market and our desire to continue to push the boundaries of technology is even higher today than it was in 10 to 15 years ago. And for me, that is fantastic,” he stated.
“And that’s important because if we didn’t continue to invest infrastructure, continue to invest in this business, then in the next five years we will start to question, what is the road map of technology evolution in Ghana?
” But we want to be at the forefront of this, we want to continue to dictate where technology goes, lead where technology goes, so that we can continue to give customers what they need to meet the demands that are currently placed on them from working from home, from digital working, from digitalisation and all the work places.”
He said MTN Ghana needed the investment to support that lifestyle that they need to keep them competitive.
Mr Adadevoh said what was more important today was that Africa had this vision of Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which would lead to the opening of borders, commerce, trade and services.
“But one of the things that will dictate, the companies and the countries that will do well in the AfCFTA is technology,” he said.
“Ghana’s desire to become a digital economy is a great one but we won’t get there if we don’t invest in infrastructure.”
He said it was important to recognize these investments were not just for the sake of investing but for the sake of achieving a digital economy by the next two to three years.
He said this would also ensure that Ghana was well-positioned to be the technology centre for AfCFTA so that the country serves the rest of the region, adding that “these are the important strategic objectives for the country that we as the MTN will continue to support.”
GNA