GIFEC hosts CSquared
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CSquared, Estelle Akofio-Sowah, has paid a visit to the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) on Wednesday, 27th April, 2022.
Madam Akofio-Sowah, who also serves as a Member of the Board of the Ghana Domain Name Registry, in her initial remarks, said that the visit was in line with required Stakeholder Engagements, especially as we get beyond the COVID disruption. According to her, the visit also served as an avenue to pay a courtesy call on the new Administrator of GIFEC.
She mentioned that CSquared currently owns and operates over 1000 kilometres of metro fiber in Kampala and Entebbe in Uganda and more than 2000 in 5 cities in Ghana: Accra, Tema, Kasoa, Kumasi, Takoradi and 180KMs in Monrovia, Liberia. She also touched briefly on the history and ownership structure of CSquared and their core Wholesale Open Access business model.
In response, the Administrator (CEO) of GIFEC – Mr. Prince Sefah acknowledged that CSquared is a well-regarded contributor of 1% of its Net Revenues to GIFEC’s base of funding. Further, he highlighted key projects and programmes being undertaken by GIFEC.
He intimated the enormity of the Ghana Rural Telephony & Digital Inclusion Project, being implemented by GIFEC on behalf of the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation and the government, touching 2,016 Communities, and connecting about 3.5 million more Ghanaians with Voice and Data Network Services.
He mentioned briefly, other key expanded initiatives of GIFEC, such as the Capacity Building Programme, especially the Girls in ICT and the Digital Transformation Centres programmes.
Mr. Sefah finally touched on GIFEC’s Cyberlabs Programmes and Community ICT Centres (CICs), including the fact that 30 more have been expanded, bringing the number to 273, at various stages of operationalisation.
Estelle expressed her particular interest in the CICs, from their earliest days, while serving as the CEO of Busy Internet.
Further discussions around how both organizations can mutually benefit from leveraging fiber infrastructure to accelerate access to Voice and Data Services.
Also discussed was on ongoing efforts at GIFEC to strengthen internal structures to meet expanding Mandates.
Both CEOs determined to look for more opportunities for closer collaboration between the two organizations, going forward.
In attendance at the Meeting were the Deputy Administrator of GIFEC – Mrs. Eva Andoh-Poku, the Director of Administration and Human Resources – Alhaji Faisal Issahaku Gbanjili and the Director of Operations – Alhaji Yahaya Zakaria Osman.
