State run telecoms firm Zamtel has announced that it has so far erected 658 new communication towers countrywide.
Zamtel Chief Executive Officer Sydney Mupeta said the 658 new sites are part of the 1009 new communication towers to be erected as part of the GRZ Communication Tower project.
Mr Mupeta said the remaining 351 sites are planned for completion within this year.
He was speaking on Thursday when Zamtel commissioned a new communication tower at Chiwawatala Basic School in Mambwe District in the Eastern Province.
“In Eastern Province alone, we had 46 sites before commissioning the GRZ project. So far we have added 51communications sites on the network under the project bringing the total number of sites in Eastern Province to 97,” Mr Mupeta said.
“This leaves us with 57 sites to be commissioned within the year. As you can see, Eastern Province alone will have a total of 154 sites which will result in increased access to communication to a number of areas in this region,” he said.
Mr Mupeta said Zamtel views Eastern Province as a region with massive economic potential which makes a great contribution to the economic development of Zambia.
“We believe that adequate communication services will play an important part in realizing this potential.”
Officiating, Eastern Province Minister Makebi Zulu commended Zamtel for extending the network coverage to Mambwe District.
Mr Zulu who is also area Member of Parliament said the provision of communication services will help government roll out various services such as the Cash Transfer Scheme and the e-Voucher programme.
And at the launch event, Zamtel provided 100 low-cost handsets to the local people at a cost of K20 while Mr Zulu purchased a further 300 handsets to be given out for free to people.
This CEO behave like a politician, everything they do they announce, your friends are making profit without Government support and still they don’t shout on the roof loud
What a bunch of cadres, even offering bribes to chiefs.
Still excercise is going on even with borrowed money for an overpriced project…how can this project still be ongoing what happened to the funds…have the government misappropriated it?
Sydney the technican can’t run a company…get a seasoned CEO to run that company and stop political interference
I don’t know Zamtel’s entire network coverage, but one thing we can’t take away from them is they have greatly improved their services, it’s impressive considering they almost went under just 4 years ago.
Is this Chinese Technology? Our Country’s critical and strategic infrastructure has been taken over!
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Zambia in The Sun – This project is funded through Chinese EXIM bank to the tune of a whooping $260 million for communication towers meaning that a Chink tech company was going to intall them. If this job work done via open tender we could have got far better cheaper towers with wider coverage for half the price…plus ZAMTEL servers are all Chinese plus a Chinese state company is installing CCTV all over the city. These morns have sold you out and you are technically in a Chinese prison and the worst bit is that you dont know it!!
This website needs serious maintenance like Zambian roads…I mean everything is in disrepair, even simple thumbs up and down doesn’t work properly once you mark down you cant change, replying to a comment is none existent, the website is so porous with virus that company and institutional firewalls deny it access.
Wake you LT Editor…you say you have admins around the world..if that is true then they should be ashamed of themselves to oversee such a substandard platform with such flaws. Look at your collegues at Nyasatimes.com their website is crisp, no glitches straightforward comments platform.
I am not interested in this article. All that I want to know is why the Police are treating Spax case with a lot of secrecy. We have had high profile cases in Zambia involving high profile personalities and the police used to give proper updates. Spax is not even a ward leader in any party and yet there is so much privacy over his case. IG please what is going on? Who did Spax kill? Normally one would be interrogated in presence of his lawyer. Who is representing Spax in all this drama or has he been assured that it is just smock screen and will be released soon?