When Regulation Fails

In Senegal, a second cellular license was issued in the 199Os to Sentel, a subsidiary of the US company Millicom International. However, when a new government took over in 2000, the price paid by Sentel was considered too low and the license was unilaterally withdrawn without any renegotiation. The creation of the regulatory agency had been deliberately delayed and the “Direction de la Réglementation” that was acting as a regulator had no effective power. In Benin, the government also decided to retrospectively increase licence fees. In Cameroon, Research ICT Africa has found evidence that the granting of frequencies and licences is not transparent. In Namibia, the failure to pass the reform legislation through Parliament for more than seven years has left the country without a regulator. In Côte d’Ivoire, even though the regulatory agency is run by well-trained officials, political interference is widely present. In South Africa, political interference is present in licensing and regulatory processes and the Ministry of Communications has a veto on the regulator. This mechanism of control has been recently removed by the Electronic Communications Act.

Source: Gasmi, F. and L. Recuero Virto (2005), “Telecommunications Technologies Deployment in Developing Countries: Role of Markets and Institutions,” Communications & Strategies, No. 58, and Esselaar, S., Gillwald, A. and C. Stork (2007), “Towards an Africa e-Index: Telecommunications Sector Performance in 16 African Countries”, Research ICT Africa, www.researchICTafrica.net.