Berhane Mewa blasts ETC

“ETC’s services are an embarrassment!”

By Tamiru Geda & Groum Abate

 In the speech delivered at a workshop on External Communication Culture and Image Building Strategy, the President of the Chamber of Commerce did not care to disguise his utter disgust at the telecommunication monopoly (ETC). Berhane started by saying “When I deliver a speech in a meeting, my first comment used to be, ‘Please switch off you mobile’, but today I will not say so, for mobile service is already dead.”
He went down a long list of service and management inadequacies, which are major obstacles to doing business in Ethiopia and actually driving investment
Whatever ETC says or plans the fact remains that: fixed lines are far from being adequate and are poor in service; mobile density is very small and the service is disastrously bad; Internet is sluggish, does not serve the demand especially in terms of quality and services which are conservative, monopoly-dictated not customer oriented.
As to the management, it is not willing to communicate, and does not even respond to letters from the private sector, which needs information to plan its business. They [the management] seem to think that they are above everybody else.
He went on to add that ETC does not have the capacity to supply enough mobile lines to the market, but instead complains that mobile handset suppliers do not have enough stock. There has been serious shortage of pre-paid cards from five weeks out of the last ten weeks, he said. ETC itself creates artificial shortages distorting the market.
“ETC’s services are an embarrassment!” No investor is willing to invest in Ethiopia if he or she cannot get telecom services within a reasonable time frame. One of my customer visiting me, commented “You must be a tough businessperson to operate in such an environment.”
His advice is that Ethiopia should quickly open up its telecom sector for genuine privatization, and integrates IT to support its development agenda.