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The Privatisation Commission (PC) has recommended two international bidders for cabinet approval for a 30 percent stake in the country’s only ground telephone operator, Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL) currently under privatisation.
PC Executive Director Maziko Sauti-Phiri said in Blantyre last Friday that the two bidders are Telecommunications Consult India Limited (TCIL)/Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTN) consortium and the Press-CDC-Detecon consortium.
But he said the commission rejected the Masons/Telekom Malaysia bid because it fell way short of the technical standards the government has set for the venture.
MTL currently has 60,000 working lines against the current demand of 110,000 lines. The operator has no financial resources to expand the existing capacity.
Malawi, at 0.5 teledensity, has the lowest telephone access in the region.
Sauti-Phiri said the commission was looking at the two bidders’ capacity to accelerate access to telephone services in the country.
“The roll-out plans was the highest criteria we used in evaluating the two bidders and, of course, the reasonableness of those plans,” he said.
He said the commission was now awaiting government approval to designate the preferred bidder.
A minimum of 30 percent is on offer but he said the strategic investor would be allowed to subscribe for further shares in MTL to take up to 80 percent of the shares.
In addition, Sauti-Phiri said, the successful bidder will be allowed to take up to 40 percent stake in Telekom Network Malawi (TNM), the cellular phone operator.
MTL runs TNM in a joint venture with Telekom Malaysia that holds 60 percent of the shares.
The remaining 20 percent in MTL, according to the Privatisation Commission, will be reserved for employees and the general public when the company will be floated on the Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE).
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