WEEKLY PUBLICATION DEADLINE: 12 pm GMT Sunday.
AGRIC-INFO SPECIAL - HELPING PRODUCERS MAKE MONEY FROM DIGITAL
INFORMATION
Bananas can be bought for 200 Ugandan shillings a bunch
on the roadside near to where they’re grown. The same bunch
costs UGS6-7,000 in the capital Kampala and UGS 10,000 at times
of high demand like Christmas. This price disparity has attracted
a whole range of technology-based information providers who are
attempting to redress the price and negotiating balance of power
in favour of the producer.
What follows is a briefing on how these providers are coming
up with ICT information solutions to address this issue. It is
based on attending a conference held by the Dutch NGO IICD for
its projects in November last year. In order that you can hear
the participant’s views as clearly as possible, this briefing
is provided on an "off-the-record" basis: views or quotes
are not attributed.
There are three additional reports in this special issue: Daniel
Annerose gives an update on progress from Manobi; Titus Gitau
of Africalion.com describes its online coffee auctions; and Stephane
Bayalza of FIAB in Burkina Faso outlines its plans to create an
information system for its members.
CHANGING THE BALANCE OF POWER IN THE VALUE CHAIN
The value-chain describes how a basic item like a bunch of
bananas starts at one price and ends at another much higher price.
At a domestic level, it might involve a producer, a lorry driver
with room on a return load, a wholesaler and a market stall owner.
At an international level, it can involve a producers, an exporter,
an importer/wholesaler, a local cash-and-carry and a retailer.
Each person in the chain needs to be paid for what they do in
getting the crop from one place to another and/or from state (unprepared)
to another (pre-prepared).
The argument of those offering agricultural information and
transaction-based sites is two-fold. Information is power and
if the producer knows the retail or market price, he or she will
will have power in the negotiation. The apocryphal anecdote that
everyone in this area repeats at one point or another is the case
of the Bangladeshi farmer who used a phone to discover market
prices and was so shocked by the disparity with what he was selling
for that he banded together with other farmers to form a transport
co-op to take their goods directly to market, cutting out the
"middleman". It is worth noting that no-one can ever
tell you where these farmers are and that the crop in question
varies in the telling from one person to another.
The second argument is related to the first and applies particularly
at an international level. Web-based technology offers producers
the opportunity to go direct to buyers in the developed world
and it is argued reduce the number of people in the value-chain
and thus retain more of the value for themselves. Increasingly
high value "boutique" products (for example, special
coffees) are finding niche markets. Each of these two arguments
rests on the notion that digital technology can produce efficiency
savings in the value chain.
In each case it is always the "middleman" who is
the villain of the piece. He or she buys low from the producer
and sells high to the retailer. But before condemning the "middleman"
it is worth unpacking the expertise that they have. They know
where to buy crops and the likely price and quality of them. They
know where to find trucks for transport and at what price. They
often take financial risks on crops that will not keep longer
than a few days. They may well lose as well as win on some transactions
but know how to come out ahead over a range of transactions. They
know where to sell goods and the prices different outlets are
likely to pay. The buyers will trust the "middleman"
to offer them some relationship between price and quality.
All of which is not necessarily in their defence but it does
illustrate that they they do a whole lot more than nothing much:
each of the layers of expertise described above has its value.
It is easy to see that providing price information may help change
the "terms of trade" but may not fundamentally affect
them. There may be simply too many other things going on in the
value chain and these also need to be looked at.
For example, a South African supermarket chain sources all
its tomatoes in South Africa rather than locally. Why? Probably
for two reasons. Its aggregate buying power across the chain enables
it to get the lowest possible price. But it can also impose a
high quality threshold that ensures it gets only the best tomatoes.
Buyers often want to deal with a single seller rather than running
hundreds of smaller transactions.
It’s an old Hollywood saying that ‘there only really
five stories’ in films. So it is with agric-info and transaction
sites. There are the price-based information services that are
sometimes supplemented with information from potential buyers.
These give farm-gate prices and market prices as a a way of offering
leverage to producers. Often those involved in producing this
kind of information find themselves getting involved in playing
a broking role. They begin to get to know enough to broker introductions
between buyers and sellers and charge a small commission. In effect
they begin to play the part of the "good guy middleman".
Finally there are the transaction-based sites. These offer the
producers the chance to sell direct to buyers. The online coffee
auctions described below and Jamaica’s JAMPRO export promotion
site are or will offer this kind of service.
Several of the price information services have come out of
either Government-run agricultural extension services, Ministries
of Agriculture or producers’ associations. Not surprisingly
they focus on helping producers in ways that go wider than price.
They often offer information on: what crops are in demand, production
levels, fertiliser prices and international regulations on quality,
packing and what constitutes "organic". For example
one of the projects at the conference was a Government ministry
looking to encourage farmers to grow non-traditional export crops
like green beans and chillies.
The different origins of these types of price services tend
to shape how they develop. If it is a government-based service,
the underlying model is one of the state helping improve planning:
the information is there to enable farmers to grow the right crops
in the best way. Because in the past it was based on phone and
typewriter, understandably its ability to produce timely information
has (until relatively recently) been somewhat limited. At least
two of the participants started price services from the position
of being private sector publishers. They could see how information
had value and in both instances found themselves broking consequent
sales as a natural entrepreneurial extension of the first service.
Others were NGOs who saw it as their role to help defend the livelihoods
of peasant producers in the increasingly choppy waters of global
agricultural markets. All illustrate different objectives whilst
addressing the same fundamental problem.
The government-based organisations often found it hard to convince
their superiors of the value of a new service of this kind that
might cost more to run and might not produce immediate benefits:"My
boss doesn’t understand computers and can’t see why
we should be doing this." Government (especially in Africa)
tends to be risk-averse and does not invest in new services easily.
There are too many competing demands. The private sector entrepreneurs
were quick to spot opportunities and move on them but were often
not trusted by government. The NGOs were able to innovate quickly
but lacked a basic understanding of running a business that might
enable them to put their services on a more sustainable footing.
Differences of organisational culture often led to confusions
between whether the service was simply information-based or it
was a more sharp-end transaction-based service. But wherever the
services originate, they all need government to facilitate improvements
in infrastructure, quality setting measures and information generation.
In some instances, government has the means to collect information
but may not have the ability to create value from it. As the Tanzanian
private sector provider put it:"We need to have a policy
intervention on measurements. There are no common measures. We
would like to work with Government on these sort of things."
So why doesn’t government sell the information to others
who can create businesses from it? A near parallel is the way
the Ordnance Survey in the UK sells mapping data to companies
who use it to create pay-for information services. (However there
is currently a huge argument as Ordnance Survey has announced
its intention to go into these business areas itself).
Whatever the service, the technological means of delivery matter
more than in developed countries. The most widely distributed
means of delivery in Africa is the mobile phone and using SMS
text messaging would seem to be a natural way of offering these
services. The article below describes a service in Senegal, Manobi.
SMS text messaging has obvious limitations for more complex information
other than a price "feed". Manobi (see below) has devised
a platform that brings the mobile and internet together.
Other approaches have been to try and extend rural connectivity,
offering the telecentres and cybercafes where producers can either
go to use a computer or simply see posted information on paper.
One West African service will rely on using telecentres that form
a part of the framework of local government. Progress on extending
connectivity to rural towns has been slow in Tanzania and Zambia
and without this first set of connections in place, the roll-out
to even more isolated places will not take place; an issue we
will return to in a later issue.
PDAs were much discussed but are not yet as widely distributed
as mobiles amongst African agricultural producers. However, their
value as a means of information gathering should not be underestimated.
Web-based transaction sites like the online coffee auctions described
below offer another platform that might work with higher value
transactions.
The long-term dream of developed world e-business specialists
is to create seamless transactions in the value-chain. Gartner’s
four-step model describes businesses going from presence (having
an non-interactive web site) to prospecting (carrying out business
through your web site) to business integration (B2B transactions)
to the highest state of nirvana, business transformation.
Significant obstacles stand in the way of following this path
in Africa. There is not yet the trust or infrastructure to make
electronic transactions an everyday feature of business life.
But as the tourism industry in South Africa shows, the possibilities
are not as far off as is often argued. However seamless information
gathering amongst a relatively small network of people is less
likely to be a substantial challenge if approached with determination.
Although technology offers obstacles, it is not the only thing
standing in the way of developing effective agric-info and transaction
services. Many projects were wrestling with more fundamental problems:
how frequent did the service need to be? How swiftly was the information
needed? How was the information to be gathered at the frequency
required? How would you describe the quality of produce to potential
buyers in the absence of agreed quality standards? Who were the
customers? Who would pay for the service?
The Government agencies collecting information often did so
on a frequency cycle that was probably too slow to affect producer
decisions: monthly as against weekly. There are problems of sampling
sizes. For example, one country has 200,000 farmers. In order
to get a representative sample, it would be necessary to be polling
several thousand a week to get any meaningful information on a
given crop. If you work out how many farms an agricultural information
officer (or indeed any other information gatherer) can visit in
a week, you can begin to see the scale of the task. Only information
gathered by phone (or in the longer term computer or PDA) will
ultimately make sense. Likewise, in a country like say Tanzania,
how many markets would you need to be sampling to say anything
meaningful about retail prices?
The scale and logistics of information gathering are thus often
harder than they might appear. With some exceptions, most of the
projects at the conference were running the equivalent of small-scale
pilots: operating in one district or centre. The Tanzanian provider
estimated that it would take 18-20 centres to provide a full service.
The next stage is to create a "critical mass" of
information so that the services become indispensable. Each operates
at a country level and in order to get this "critical mass"
for export crops, there will need to be some way offering an aggregated
service that offers prices from different parts of Africa and
from across the world. FIAB, a trade association in Burkina Faso
(see below) was the only organisation to realise the importance
of transport prices to the final price achieved.
Most of the participants at the conference had not yet reached
the point of addressing how their services might be sustainable
in the long-term. Often they felt that since those who needed
the information were often not well-off it did not make sense
to be charging them for it. There was not always a clear sense
of income against cost. However all were painfully aware that
if the services are to survive they have to find an answer to
the question: who will pay for it?
The biggest difficulty for most will be making the transition
from being free to needing to charge somebody for it to be sustainable
in the long-term. The donor, in this instance IICD, can "seed"
developments but cannot be the long-term funder. One way of looking
at it would be to think about customers at different value levels.
The producers must surely be able to pay at least something if
the information has the value its proponents argue. Therefore
these represent numerous low value customers. It would also be
possible to charge the equivalent of subscriptions to the services
with higher subscription levels for larger farmers and major agri-producers.
The much abused "middlemen" would also be likely mid-value
subscribers. Finally governments and donors ("donor farming"
as one person described it) provide a small number of high-value
customers.
It might not be possible to cover the entire costs of the service
but it would be possible to look at a percentage cost recovery
model. If the service was well used it might make back more than
half its costs and look to government to fund the rest. It may
be that Government does not attempt to run the service directly
itself but sells the information to others to create new businesses
that have the expertise to make money from it. For example, one
of the Government participant’s organisations had a variety
of key pieces of information: the mobile numbers of a considerable
number of farmers, farm price information and the names and phone
numbers of buyers. It could sell this information to a company
that could produce a value-added service that it could sell to
a mobile company or share revenues with the mobile phone company
based on use of the service.
Price or cost information becomes valuable where the crops
produced are high-value and there are big price swings. It is
perhaps in areas of agriculture that fit this more demanding criteria
where commercial returns will be made. Any company or organisation
that can collect and process information has the basis of some
considerable expertise. As we outlined in a previous issue (issue
134:Competing in world ICT markets - Africa needs to raise its
game), these are the skills that will enable organisations to
win developed world, value-added information service outsourcing
contracts.
MANOBI TEAMS UP WITH SONATEL TO PROVIDE AGRIC-INFO ON MOBILES
Manobi-France, an Internet and mobile service virtual operator
and SONATEL, a subsidiary of France Télécom, have
announced the creation of Manobi-Senegal, a joint venture that
will enable them to produce and provide data services on mobile
telephony to the rural sector and agribusiness professionals.
Manobi- France holds 66 % of the subsidiary and SONATEL the remaining
34 %.
The creation of Manobi-Senegal is an important landmark in
the partnership between the two companies which for a whole year,
have been successfully testing the multimedia devices developed
and implemented by Manobi-Franceon the SONATEL Internet and mobile
network before validating them with their customers.
ManobI-France has developed a bi-polar device integrating the
following:
- The Multi-Channel Service Platform (MCP), which is a unique
multi-modal technological platform that adds multi-channels data
functionnalities in the network of the mobile operators with no
necessary major changes in their structure. Fully developed in
Open Source, it ensures an immediate and full convergence between
Mobile and Internet at the market cheapest price. - MyVo, a strong
value added e-business application line for the professionals
of agriculture and fishing sectors (producers, fishermen, fishmongers,
industrialists, exporters, importers. ). From any mobile or wired
terminal, the user can in any circumstance, securely access his
individual virtual office to obtain the following services: (i)
information on the market and on their products, (ii) communication
(e-mails, news, ), (iii) sales (market places), (iv) supply (product
price-lists, online purchases,) and (v) professional assistance
(follow up on crops, ).
The solution proposed by Manobi-Senegal is destined for the
rural market traders who are not generally found in the group
of customers of the mobile telephone operators in the developing
countries. They are thus offered intelligent data services that
complete the classic voice offer. This market has important potential
for the mobile telephony sector.
Manobi-France has designed a balanced technological solution
with a full range of services that enables it to devote more energies
to the development of new uses suited to the local needs. Millions
of producers can in this way, from a mobile or wired terminal
adapted to their economic level of the moment, reach the center
of their business or market from their farms. The multi-mode and
multi-channel peculiarities of our platform permit to offer to
the other actors of the sectors, like the industrials and the
suppliers, services that increase their interactions with the
producers who are often located far from the market places. Our
sound solutions enable us to efficiently tackle the complexity
of these sectors of activity by simplifying the exchange processes
among the actors thanks to a very good mastery of the technologies
used.
Cheikh Tidiane Mbaye, general manager of the SONATEL says that
his company is happy with this partnership which enables to make
the first integrated offer of data services on both the Mobile
and the Internet in Senegal and in West Africa.
³As an operator, SONATEL is of course looking for new
growth relays for the classic offers on the mobile. The partnership
with Manobi-France directly meets that need by opening for us,
with a controlled investment, important prospects of getting customers
who request data services and whom we will better satisfy together.
The coherence of the service offer that will be endowed to Manobi-
Senegal will in particular, enable us to better organize and optimize
more rapidly our investments in infrastructures in the rural areas
by obtaining for example more sophisticated assessment data on
the local economic activity.²
Manobi-France, which is both a virtual operator and provider
of value added services has its headquarters in Montpellier (France).
The company was founded by a French Senegalese team specialising
in telecommunications, Internet and agro-industrial markets. Manobi
deploys its multi modal platforms (Wap, SMS, MMS, iMode, Web,)
and terminals (mobile telephone, PDA, PC) in developing countries
and Europe in order to establish interactions through the mobile
networks and the Internet among the professionals of the agribusiness
sector. The services generate both traffic for the operators and
new income for the users. The R&D activities are carried out
at the Montpellier center, which ensures the long distance management
of the exploitation of the external platforms. MANOBI-FRANCE has
7 employees in Montpellier. Senegal is the first African country
where it has ses up.
ONLINE COFFEE AUCTION ALLOWS SELLERS TO ACHIEVE BETTER PRICE
Africanlion.com is wholly owned by Lion Coffee Co Ltd, a registered
Coffee brokerage by Coffee Board Kenya & Mild Coffee traders
Association of East Africa. The online commodity trading venture
was formed by Titus Gitau and Stephen Njukia in 1999, both having
worked in fertilizer and grain trading respectively.
The auction software was customized and developed locally by
Sawasa.com. The target commodities include coffee, tea and other
agricultural products from east/central Africa.
The first Internet Auction was held in April 2002 in conjunction
with Eastern African Fine Coffee Association (EAFCA) and was deemed
to be Africa’s first successful internet coffee auction.
It involved months of preparations as individual countries liquored
and cupped their finest coffees. Finalist eventually met in Kampala
in early March and a regional competition took place pitting each
country’s finest coffee against one another. The panel of
jurors involved included regional coffee board liqourers and international
liquors from Japan and the US.
The winning coffees were then sent via courier to prospective
buyers worldwide. Interested buyers then registered their companies
on africanlion.com in preparation for auction date which was to
run 24 hrs from 090gmt April 14-15.
Auction ran superbly. The software worked magnificently. The
winning lot of Kenya from Kenya fetched usd453 per 50 kg bag a
price not seen since coffee booms of earlier decades.
BURKINA’S AGRO-PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION PLANS TRANSPORT
COST INFO
The National Federation of Agro food Industries and Processing
in Burkina Faso (FIAB) was started in September 1991. It has more
than sixty (60) enterprises who are members from :
- production
- processing
- selling of food products in the following domains: cereals,
fruits and vegetables, livestook,meat and fishing , oleaginous,
forestry, dairy and by-products.
FIAB is a professionals association and its main objective
is to represent and defend its members interests and to promote
the growth of their activities. FIAB has also the following objectives:
- To reinforce human resources and develop the members as well
as their staff’s know how in their enterprises
- to promote healthy and quality products, then in the long
run create standards and brands of quality
- to seek for industrial and commercial complementary among
the members, to develop partnership and exchanges at the national,
regional and international level
- to develop a business- intelligent and help in creating medium
small size business and Industries of Agro food in developing
countries.
Our agric-info project started in 1999 and is a partnership
with IICD. In order to cover the whole country, FIAB is organised
into five areas and in each area there is a decentralised branch
of FIAB.
The main objectives of the project are:
-to train members in the use of ICT
- To set an information system between the members in one hand
and between the members and the rest of the world in the other
hand
- to make the federation , well know
- To exchange product supply and demand on the FIAB website
The activities carried so far include:
- The training of the members in the use of internet
- The setting of a standing secretariat
- Opening of 5 branches equipped with computers
- Creation of a website
FIAB offers its members agric-info on the products its members
are involved with across Burkina Faso. The information includes:
prices of primary materials, the cost of processing equipment,
costs and availability of transport and offers and requests for
products. The aim is to collect information through the regional
offices. The information on transport availability will also be
included in the coming months. The primary source of this information
will be the "transport exchange" (Bourse de Fret) which
is one of the organisations which collects this information and
we will be putting it up on the FIAB web site and also sending
it by e-mail to those who request it.
FIAB’s web site which will serve as one means of disseminating
the information is currently being restructured but you can visit
and see the progress thus far (www.fiab.bf)
Information will also be disseminated in more traditional forms
through paper bulletins and by telephone. In the future FIAB would
like to form partnerships across the continent and the world to
disseminate its information.
CTA has recently devoted its web magazine ICT Update to Agricultural Market Information Systems (http://ictupdate.cta.int) . Besides four articles (including one on Manobi by Daniel Anerose), CTA makes available a comprehensive resource with links to news articles, projects etc.
The Ghanaian Government’s difficulties with Ghana Telecom
are not about to get any easier. According to the Malaysian newspaper
New Straits Times Telekom Malaysia Bhd. (P.TEL) wants US$90 million
to $100 million for its 30% stake in Ghana Telecom. Where does
this leave its investment plans in the new company now being managed
on its behalf by Telenor?
Not surprisingly, valuers appointed by Ghana’s government,
which owns the other 70% of Ghana Telecom, are believed to favor
a lower price for the stake, the paper says. Government-controlled
Telekom Malaysia is trying to sell its Ghana Telecom stake, probably
back to the Ghana government, after its management contract was
not renewed last year.
Telekom Malaysia is also seeking the return of US$50 million
deposited as half payment for an additional 15% stake in Ghana
Telecom in 2000 and US$8 million as interest on the deposit, the
paper says.
THE transformation of Botswana Telecommunications Corporation
(BTC) continues to take shape as more staff members are appointed
into management positions. With the divisional heads now appointed,
the consultants who have been given a P62 million contract work,
has started to identify heads of departments.
Recently sixteen managers were appointed to take charge of
corporate business and new business and sales departments. Although
the International Development of Ireland (IDI) had given an impression
that the transformation process will not entail mass promotions,
the latest appointments include the elevation of eleven staff
members. The rest were recruited from outside. According to internal
staff announcements, these managers brief entails responsibility
for customer relations and business development. This is seen
as a challenging task.
The IDI consultants want to instil a new spirit among the staff
to ensure that customer problems receive rapid attention. The
appointment of the sixteen managers has generated anxiety among
staff members in other departments who feel that their jobs are
been taken while they have not been told of their fate. The salaries
of the new managers are reported to be very high. Both the IDI
management and the public relations manager of BTC were not available
for comment.
The South African Government has expressed satisfaction at
the ‘phenomenal’ response to Telkom Initial Public Offering
(IPO), saying such a massive public reaction to share registration
indicated ‘a real thirst’ for financial and investment
knowledge amongst locals. At least a million South Africans have
so far registered for both Khulisa (for historically disadvantaged
individuals) and general offer shares, with Gauteng topping the
chart at 246 788. It is followed by the Eastern Cape (164 170);
KwaZulu-Natal (158 492); Western Cape (129 471); Mpumalanga (76
090) and Limpopo (71 270).
‘This is a resounding vote of support for our broad programme
to restructuring,’ public enterprise minister Jeff Radebe.’The
response is, quiet simply, phenomenal. The figure of one million
registrations is more than four times our expectation and is particularly
significant when viewed against similar initiatives in the private
sector.’
"There are no fundamental issues outstanding," Public
Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe said yesterday. "We have
finalised the shareholders agreement with our partners and had
final meetings with the JSE and NYSE. We will release full technical
details in about 10 days."
- Nigeria’s MTS moves towards attaining its March target
for the launch of it First Wireless’ 700,000 voice and data
lines and 3,000 kilometers of long distance communication facilities
across the country with the arrival last week of equipment that
will assist in its implementation.Eight cities, beginning from
Lagos, will benefit in the first phase of the roll out of MTS’
CDMA 2000 1X technology which is the latest wireless phone technology.
- Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Transport and Communications
has ruled out the much-publicised introduction of a fourth mobile
cellular operator in the near future. According to the Herald,
Dr Witness Mangwende’s statement flies in the face of efforts
by the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe
aimed at accommodating a fourth operator.
- The subscriber base of Egypt’s state-owned fixed line
monopoly Telecom Egypt has reached 7.7 million in January 2003.
This constitutes 57 percent growth over October 1999, when the
company’s fixed line subscribers amounted to 4.9 million.
The number of Telecom Egypt’s wireless subscribers currently
stands at 4.5 million.
- A regional Information Technology (IT) Association aimed
at strengthening information technologies in Eastern and Southern
Africa was launched in Addis Ababa last Friday. The launching
of Association of Regulators of Information and Communication
for Eastern and Southern Africa (ARICEA) is being preceded by
a three-day capacity building workshop.
Imprisoned Tunisian Internet activist Zouhair Yahyaoui is in
the fifth day of his hunger strike to protest the harsh conditions
of his confinement. Zouhair Yahyaoui founded TUNeZine.com soon
after he graduated from college. Yahyaoui has been held captive
since June, 2002, when he was sentenced to 24 months for posting
satirical criticism of the Tunisian government on his Web site,
Tunezine. He is currently detained in prison civile de Borj El
Amri, where he is suffering from mouth sores and severe headaches
in harsh, overcrowded conditions. Currently, Yahyaoui’s case
rests in the Court of Cassation, which acts as the final arbiter
for a courtcase in Tunisia, considering arguments on points of
law as opposed to the facts of a case. However, says Elwarda,
the Court of Cassation is bound under no time limitation and can
decide Yahyaoui’s case in two or more years if it wishes.
(source: Digital Freedom Network)
- Technology Empowerment Network’s projects for 2003 include
the following African projects: Eshop Africa, WOUGNET, and Nairobits.
- SA mail list IOZ has launched a new mail list for those interested
in wi-fi. As it notes:"Regulatory restrictions on the use
of wireless telecommunications in South Africa notwithstanding,
the WiFi list advocates the development of wireless communities
and the deployment of WiFi as a mechanism forthe delivery of broadband
services in both urban and rural areas". Its interest is
focused on but not limited to South Africa. The IOZ.wifi mailing
list is an open list; to subscribe, send mail to <majordomo@internet.org.za>,
with "subscribe wifi" in the body of your message.
Translate.org believed it was not only possible but important
to produce multi-lingual software and through this to improve
the lives of many South Africans. Through its work you can now
get computer software in many South African languages including
IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, SiSwati and Tshivenda.
Comparex Africa has won a R70m three-year outsourcing deal
to supply information and communications technology services to
packaging company Nampak.Comparex will run a network and data
centre for 120 Nampak facilities in southern Africa, provide helpdesk
and end-user services and head some large-scale technology projects
for the company.Comparex won the deal over stiff competition from
local and international rivals because of its cultural fit with
Nampak and its track record of successful outsourcing deals, the
companies said.
Local South African computer manufacturers Pinnacle and Mustek
are lobbying the trade and industry department to ensure local
products are given a fair chance to compete. The companies, along
with the Proudly South African campaign, hope to remind government
of its commitment to boost job creation and change in its tendering
policies.
Pinnacle CEO Arnold Fourie said they would also approach the
Competition Commission to determine if the tenders fall foul of
anticompetitive guidelines.One tender sees the Independent Electoral
Commission (IEC) call for computers worth about R10m. But the
commission will only buy from manufacturers with an international
market share of at least 2%. The other tender calls for 90 PCs
for the Ekurhuleni municipality, and specifies Dell or Compaq
models.That tender will be judged 90% on cost and 10% on job creation,
local content and the involvement of black businesses.
- Personal computer shipments for Europe, the Middle East and
Africa rose six percent in the fourth quarter, the second straight
quarterly increase, but a recovery is still a long way off, Gartner
Dataquest said last week. Continued growth in the sale of laptop
and notebook computers led the resurgence, the market research
firm said. For the year, PC shipments in the region grew three
percent.
- Fujitsu-Siemens has opened its doors for the first time in
Botswana through a ‘close to market’ distributor, ChannelTec.
"Our go-to-market strategy throughout Africa includes establishing
a distribution channel ," says Jane Tully, Fujitsu Siemens
Computers’ Business Development Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa.
"Botswana is going through substantial growth and there is
a substantial market for notebooks, PCs and servers," said
Meempat Narayan, Managing Director of ChannelTec.
It has not been a good week for the two bidders for the SNO
franchise in South Africa. Many of those who are attacking the
process have vested interests but the continued criticism is beginning
to undermine the process. Below is a summary of the onslaught:
- A damning report on the two bids for control of SA’s
second telephone network operator should prompt the adjudicators
to reject both, says the operator’s black empowerment stakeholder,
Nexus.Business Day says this "lends weight to suggestions
by local stakeholders Transtel and Eskom Enterprises that the
operator should go ahead without Optis or Goldleaf, which are
bidding for a 51% stake".
- Consultants analysing the two bids to control SA’s second
fixed-line telephone operator have tacitly accused MTN of poisoning
the business plan of contender Goldleaf in order to protect itself
from competition. MTN says the allegations against it are far-fetched,
unfounded and counter-intuitive.
Arif Hussain, MTN’s GM for strategic investments who has
been working closely with the Goldleaf team, says MTN would like
to see a strong competitor to Telkom because such an SNO would
be to its advantage. He also rejects the implication that MTN
could have influenced the Goldleaf business plan to any great
extent, saying the Premier Contracts Agency was responsible for
the plan and would have rejected any "poison" MTN attempted
to introduce.
- A report commissioned by the regulator ICASA from the Next
Generation consortium released on Friday implies (according to
ItWeb) that MTN is responsible for Goldleaf adopting its "SNO
lite" model and says this may irreparably stunt the second
national operator (SNO) while keeping it from competing with MTN.
The Optis consortium comes off the worst in the general analysis,
which leaves little room to imagine that its bid could still succeed.
The consultants find that Optis misled ICASA by presenting work
by Siemens as its own and continued to withhold important information
throughout the bid process.
The report also again highlights issues such as the involvement
of 18-year-old Warren Friedland as the biggest shareholder in
Optis. Because Friedland, who is still a minor, signed much of
the legal documentation that established the Optis shelf company,
the bidding entity may not have any official existence.
It is no less critical of Goldleaf. According to Next Generation
group: "Against the background of the licensing fee requirements
of R300 million, the performance guarantee requirement of R50
million and the fact that both the applicants are unfounded cash
shells, neither applicant has shown that it could commence business
if awarded the licence on 31 January 2003."
- More depressingly Moneyweb suggests that given that Next
Generation, the consultants to Icasa on the second national operator
(SNO), have dismissed the two bidders for the 51% "strategic
equity partnership" stake as inadequate, the chances are
looking pretty likely that there will not be a winner.The implications
of this outcome for the country as a whole are undoubtedly serious,
and include the further extension of Telkom’s monopoly position.
- ICASA’s Siyabonga Madyibi conceded that not finding
a winner would be a very unfortunate outcome: "The implications
will be quite serious on the economy, quite serious for investors
and, because it will seriously dent investor confidence in the
country if a no-bid situation were to arise." Although this
had not yet been explored as an option, Madyibi said it was probably
not out of the question for the three existing shareholders, Transtel,
Esi-Tel and Nexus, to continue without a strategic equity partner.
"There is no framework that is in place that basically sets
out what should happen if a no-bid situation was to arise. But,
yes, what you have outlined is certainly one of the options that
could be exercised," he said.
Madyibi said the failure to secure a 51% applicant would cast
some uncertainty over the valuation of Telkom: "I do not
think the IPO will be held back necessarily, but I think it will
create uncertainty in the minds of investors," he said on
Classic Business.
ICASA is set to decide on 31 January 2003.
Moroccan web-hosting company Maroc Host has launched a sponsorship
programme aimed at helping young people put their projects up
on the web. It hopes that the programme will help enrich local
content on the web. It is offering them free web hosting for an
unlimited period to launch their projects. According to Reda Chebli
of Maroc Host:"The young have good ideas but do not always
have the means or the technical competence to realise them. Therefore
we’ve decided to encourage them with this scheme because
Morocco does not have many sites of interest to them. Among the
projects that have been launched since the scheme got under way
are the site of an NGO specialising in surgery for children with
physical deformities and an association of Moroccan ICT people.
SA’s Internet watchdogs, much like their counterparts
elsewhere, are planning a campaign to educate parents and children
about the dangers of paedophiles who lurk in Internet chat rooms.The
growing threat of child abusers who roam cyberspace chat rooms,
often posing as children and who then use these forums to arrange
physical meetings with their victims, has prompted the government
to take action.
The Film and Publications Board (FPB), which falls under the
auspices of the deputy minister of Home Affairs, Masiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula,
polices such issues as child pornography on the Internet and has
been tasked by the minister with running the educational campaign.
Brenda Roodt, a sexual-offences prosecutor who has been seconded
to the FPB, will head up the operation. She has a reputation as
a prosecutor of child abusers, having successfully prosecuted
the "Father Christmas paedophile", James McNeil.
Roodt says the campaign is still in the planning phase, but
they hope to launch the first stage &SHY; a hotline where members
of the public can report cases of child pornography &SHY; by April.
- Cote D’Ivoire’s secondhand car sales people see
themselves under attack from those selling cars on the internet,
according to Fraternité Matin. Web host Abidjan.net has
been offering cars for sale at cheaper prices than local dealers.
Furthermore customers are comparing local prices to those found
elsewhere and are appalled at the high prices locally. Local dealers
protest that they are not comparing like with like as they as
dealers have to maintain premises and that it would not be practical
to offer lower prices.
- There is a rare web site covering the Horn of Africa (Djibouti,
Ethiopia and Somalia) that provides good content called http://al.oueb.free.fr/
- The new NEPAD initiative was the subject of a conference
held in Cape Town at the end of 2002. The entire conference was
digitized and can be viewed on the Internet at www.omeganepad.com.
All presentations can be interactively selected with audio and
visuals efficiently streamed to your PC. Ensure you have sound
and speakers installed on your PC to use this interactive site.
- Cisco’s Antoine Perrault has published a personal web
page that summarizes the network design and the equipments (based
on Cisco) that a small ISP start-up needs to start operating.The
document tries to reply to the most common questions asked by
Small Startup ISPs that want to set up Dialup and Internet leased
lineservices.
* Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo last week cautioned
GSM telephony operators in the country against charging high tariffs
for their services which the citizenry would be unable to bear.
Represented by the Minister of Communications, Dr. Bello Mohammed
at the official commissioning ceremony of MTN’s national
microwave transmision backbone, Obasanjo said, "Regarding
tariffs, while it is a policy of this administration not to interface
or dictate tariffs, let me quickly add that we are very concerned
that tariffs do not remain unbearable to the majority of our people."
He continued that "I would like to urge GSM operators
to exercise the highest restraint and sense of responsibility
in fixing their tariffs," adding that government will continue
to put in place suitable conditions and policies to enable the
operators develop a viable tariff regime.The President also expressed
the hope that in due course, "tariff will be gradually forced
down by competition."
While also commending MTN for embarking on the project the
President said, "I would like to acknowledge that GSM operators
have helped to provide thousands of jobs to Nigerians over the
last two years."He stated that apart from those directly
employed by the GSM operators, thousands more jobs have been provided
by the dozens companies servicing the GSM industry. According
to him, GSM has brought in its wake enhanced productivity and
efficiency which MTN and others have helped to instil in virtually
every sector of Nigeria’s economic life.
- Kenya’s Transport and Communications Minister John Michuki
said that it would spend KS14 billion on rural telephone connections.
He said the ratio of urban telephone network to that of rural
areas was 60 to 40, despite more than 75 per cent of the country’s
population living in the countryside.
Speaking in his Kangema constituency on Sunday last week, the
minister said telephones were not a luxury. "Telephone communication
is a necessity, a factor to enhance the economic life of our people." He
said the money used by families to travel long distances in search
of telephone services would instead be used to enhance their living
standards.
Describing cell-phones as gadgets which could only be afforded
by the elite, Mr Michuki said KenCell and Safaricom mobile phone
providers had between them 1.2 million customers. "We (Ministry)
want to concentrate on rural areas to get the people to communicate
cheaply and also as part of poverty eradication," he said.
He, however, said the ministry was planning to increase competition
in the cell-phone service by inviting quotations for a third mobile
service provider. "Competition between three cell phone companies
will definitely bring down telephone charges," he added.
* IDPM, at the University of Manchester (UK), is seeking two
information systems lecturers to take an information systems/social
science approach to one or more of: e- development, e-government,
e-business for development, e- learning in development organisations.
If our correspondent is "off the mark" or you have
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