Africans look at post-privatisation telecoms needs

ACCRA, March 2 (Reuters) - An African telecommunications conference opened in Accra on Tuesday with the focus on post-privatisation issues and how to extend communication networks across a continent in which they are notoriously poor.

``The target for the next five years is an affordable and reliable telecoms service with a minimum time to connect which should not be a seen as a privilege but as a right,'' Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, chairman of Ghana's advisory Council of State, said.

Bawumia called for the establishment of an African telecommunications thinktank.

``We should stop thinking that solutions adopted in Europe or America can easily be imported in Africa without proper analysis of their appropriateness to our situations,'' he said.

World Bank analyst Paul Birmingham was encouraged by the fact that this was ``not a foreign donor-organised conference, but organised by an independent private African company in Ghana, which is one of the most interesting reform models on the continent and one of the leaders of sector reform.''

The three-day conference was organised by Spectrum International.

Ghana's communications minister, John Mahama, told Reuters that Ghana was way ahead of most African states in liberalising its telecommunications industry and now had to concentrate on greater penetration.

``One of the main priorities is to increase access to telecom services across the nation by way of wireless technology. So we will focus on what wireless technology is out there and how appropriate is it to our Ghanaian conditions,'' he said.

South African Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Jay Naidoo told Reuters that ``African connectivity'' would be one of the biggest developmental challenges of the next century.

``The basis of the competitiveness of any region, country or continent is the communication infrastructure,'' he said.