MINISTER for Works, Transport and Communication, Eng Isack Kamwelwe, has tasked the Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF) to form a special team that will inspect the effectiveness of the communication towers countrywide.
He said the team should visit more than 1,300 communication services towers that the government has been funding through the Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF).
“We want value for money, you must make a survey and establish communication towers that are’t functioning, so that we take appropriate actions,” Eng Kamwelwe said.
He gave the assignment on Friday during a contracts signing with five telecom companies for providing communication services to 252 wards.
The companies that signed the pact are TTCL Corporation, Vodacom Tanzania, Viettel Tanzania that trades as Halotel and MIC Tanzania, which trades as Tigo and Vodacom Tanzania.
Minister Kamwelwe said the agreements were part of the government’s initiatives to ensure that all villages in the country have reliable communications services by 2020.
“The government is determined to take communications services to every part of the country and this will be the fourth phase of implementing the UCSAF’s mission on supplying communications to the hard to reach areas,” he explained.
UCSAF Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ms Justina Mashiba said over 145bn/- had been set aside for the projects, whereby more than three million people in rural areas will benefit from communication services.
She said over 555 villages in 252 wards will be covered in the fourth phase when communication will be in place by October this year.
She added that 574 wards have benefitted from the communication services while an additional 129 are in the final touches of projects implementation.
