Project:
MTN Nigeria
Country:
Nigeria
Sector:
Telecoms
Description:
In 2004 EAIF committed a US$ 10 million loan to this US$ 200 million project to finance the expansion of MTN Nigeria’s cellular telephone network. US$ 5 million was disbursed in 2004 and was repaid in March 2006. MTN now provides services in 223 cities and towns, and more than 10,000 villages, spanning the 26 states of Nigeria. The additional capacity has increased the number of subscribers from 2 million to c.3.4 million people, with an estimated 30,000 direct and indirect jobs being created. The project has also raised the need for increased technical capacity to maintain and develop cutting edge technology support within Nigeria, and MTN is committed to training local staff and investing in their development and welfare.
Project:
Celtel
Country:
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sector:
Telecoms
Description:
A US$ 30 million loan from EAIF was the final step required for this telecoms project to go ahead, securing US$ 190 million in private sector investment, and enabling the telecoms company Celtel to provide mobile connections to over 2.5 million people in 12 countries, an increase of 70% compared to 2002. EAIF provided the loan in 2004, which was fully repaid in June 2006 when Celtel refinanced the project.
Project:
Celtel Nigeria
Country:
Nigeria
Sector:
Telecoms
Description:
The financing documentation was signed in February 2007. EAIF has committed a US$ 35 million loan to Celtel Nigeria, the third largest mobile operator in Nigeria. The financing is part of a US$ 350 million financing package for the expansion and upgrading of their entire network. To date US$ 24.45 million has been disbursed by EAIF. The project will significantly improve access to mobile telephone services throughout the country, as well as increasing competition in the telecoms sector across the continent.
Project:
Celtel Africa
Country:
Sierra Leone, Congo, Uganda, Madagascar and Malawi
Sector:
Telecoms
Description:
EAIF signed the Celtel Africa deal at US$24 million on the 11th of June 2007. The deal attracted much interest and was over-subscribed which meant that the Fund's initial offer of US$35 million was scaled back. The financing was split across 5 Celtel entities: Sierra Leone US$ 9 million, Congo US$ 8 million (fully disbursed), Uganda US$ 4 million (of which US$ 1.79 million disbursed), Madagascar US$ 2 million (of which US$ 0.96 million disbursed) and Malawi US$ 1 million (of which US$ 600k disbursed).
Project:
Seacom
Country:
South & East Africa (South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya & Tanzania)
Sector:
Telecom
Description:
The USD 600m Seacom project is the first undersea fibre optic cable project along the east coast of Africa, the only region in the world not currently served by such an infrastructure. The project closed in November 2007 and involves the construction of a 15000Km cable directly connecting Mtunzini in South Africa to Mumbai India, via Marseille in France, Egypt, Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya and Tanzania. The project will have a capacity of 1.28TB per second providing much-needed bandwidth capacity for South Africa and a number of east coast African countries that currently rely on expensive and limited satellite bandwidth.
EAIF provided USD 35m debt financing to a special purpose vehicle controlled by Industrial Promotion Services (Kenya) Ltd, one of the sponsors and a subsidiary of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development with a 25% equity interest in the project. This debt financing, allowed IPS to transfer its equity investment into the Seacom undersea fibre optic cable.
The project fits into the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) business and strategy, which has a brief to back highly developmental infrastructure projects in Africa.
Eastern and Southern Africa are significantly underserved in telecommunications bandwidth - a measure of telecommunications capacity. Africa as a whole, already underserved in comparison to the rest of the world, has bandwidth use of 107 million Mbps. Of this, only 35.9 million mbps is in sub-Saharan Africa. The lowest penetration of band-with in sub-Saharan Africa is in East Africa, the only area in the world not currently served by submarine cables. It has only 3.9 million mbps in bandwidth, less than West Africa with 10.5 million mbps; West Africa at least being served by one submarine cable. Southern Africa with 22 mbps, mostly in the Republic of South Africa is much better served, but still significantly underserved with e.g. even Northern Africa having 72 million mbps of service.
Apart from limited capacity, sub-Saharan Africa suffers from very high prices and low connection speeds in part driven by the limited capacity installed and in part by the technological limitations of the satellite services on which it relies; satellite has limitations when compared with undersea or overland cables which provide much higher bandwidth capacity at a much lower cost.
