Founder and retired chairman of Visafone Communications Limited, Mr. Jim Ovia, has said that Visafone remains open for business and will be leveraged to expand MTN’s roll out of its Long Term Evolution, LTE broadband services. This will ensure the continuity of the Visafone trademark broadband, enterprise solutions and voice services to its customer base.
According to Jim Ovia, the acquisition of Visafone by MTN is clearly a very healthy development that will further accelerate the growth of ICT in Nigeria. “The advent of mobile telecommunication services into the country over a decade ago has impacted Nigeria positively and created a new industry powered by technology and innovation.
Looking back, we have recorded progress and achievements that have positively impacted the growth of other sectors such as banking, e-commerce and entertainment. We recognise that the industry holds greater potential that can further catalyse Nigeria’s economic growth generally”.
With regard to manpower development, Ovia said that contrary to media reports, MTN did not sack any staff. However, out of the total 350 professional staff that Visafone had prior to the acquisition, some voluntarily resigned and were adequately compensated
Speaking further, Ovia said he had it on good authority that in a bid to ensure seamless transition of the process and maintain business continuity, some staff of Visafone were being re-engaged by MTN in order to maximise the use of key assets such as network and technology.
Also yesterday, chief executive officer, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Ferdi Moolman at a media briefing held at its head office in Lagos said MTN is putting in huge investment in upgrading its network having already invested over $15 billion in the nation’s economy in the last 15 years.
He said “There is huge potential and growth in Nigeria and I believe it is going to be unlocked and we want to be part of that growth. We would like to be people’s company where we continually offer our customers values. We have put in a team to look at what is happening in Visafone to ensure that subscribers on Visafone for both voice and data experience better services delivery.
“We have plans to deploy LTE and we are also increasing the quality of our 3G because 3G can be improved substantially. After our acquisition of Visafone, things are being reviewed. We were under the impression that the staff we have in-house can handle the Visafone functions as an entity but it is becoming clearer that we need to re-hire disengaged staff by Visafone to manage the entity.
Moolman said MTN Nigeria is developing new framework and model with which it will use in integrating Visafone into MTN operations. He also said they are recalling many of Visafone’s staff as part of the strategy. He said the new framework would have milestones for the rollout of LTE beginning with key cities within the next 12 months.
