The consortium, which includes South Africa's Vodacom and Britain's Vodafone, won an operating licence with a bid of $850 million in May to set up a telecom firm in Africa's second most populous nation. Apart from the licence issuance, it plans to sell a 45% stake in state-run mobile operator Ethio Telecom. The Safaricom consortium plans to invest up to $8.5 billion in the country's infrastructure and other areas. "Anwar will lead the Ethiopian Operating Company on behalf of the Global Partnership for Ethiopia Consortium," Ndegwa said in a statement. Before joining Vodacom, Soussa was the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel in Uganda and Chad and had also worked for South Africa's telecom firm MTN.

Source: Ethiopian News July 05, 2021 12:45 UTC