Listing of foreign companies should Go beyond mobile phone operators

According to the managing director of Vodacom Tanzania Limited, which has now been renamed as Vodacom Tanzania Public Limited Company (Plc), Ian Ferrao, the telecom firm submitted its application to the Capital Markets and Securities Authority (CMSA) at the weekend for the IPO.

Company tidings also inform that Vodacom’s closest competitor, Tigo, which goes by the name of Milicom Tanzania Limited, also intends to submit its prospectus to CMSA by the year end.

The other mobile network providers, partly government owned Airtel and Zantel, and the Vietnamese owned mobile firm Halotel, could not explain what their positions are as far as listing on the bourse is concerned.

But under the Electronic and Postal Communication Act of 2010 (EPOCA) and the Finance Act of 2016, all telecoms companies are required to list at least 25 percent of their shares on the country’s bourse before the end of this year.

Despite the hasty nature of the move as far as the telecoms are concerned this is very good news to indigenous Tanzanians

There are many reasons that call for the government to embark on such a posture.
First is that most, save perhaps for one or two of the companies where the Union and Zanzibar governments relatively own some shares, are foreign, with their parent companies aboard.

It has therefore been that though majority of the buyers of services offered by these companies are Tanzanians, the accumulated revenue is weirdoed out of the country through capital transfer to the foreign parent companies.

As a result, though the companies have been enjoying super profit for many years, it is only little that has been left to Tanzanians besides jobs, services and a little bit of what is called corporate social responsibility.

Even what is called CSR remains questionable because if one is to go into the materiality matrix, green washing or ethical marketing part of it, according to Financial Times, there isn’t much that is left in the country by many foreign companies if not the telecom companies only.

For if one were to look at CSR seriously, it would mean that aspects such as human rights, corporate governance, health and safety, environmental effects, working conditions and contribution to economic development- in a word- the drive to change towards sustainability- should be taken on board.

With IPO listings of the telecoms, we believe this would scale up the images of these companies, enable Tanzanians to own more shares and the economy, thus transfer the same into building of the nation.

We also believe that with the sale of shares to Tanzanian members of the public, this trend would stabllise the economy and the currency that is dancing like yoyo through non or little transfer of capital.

A word of caution: Let the listing that Tanzanians are longing for not be the likes of the gold digging companies, which mine the heavy metal in Tanzania, but have listed in bourses in other parts of the world.

Such superficial listings, make it difficult for Tanzanians to purchase shares and moreover, may lead to crisis. This should therefore never be entertained in the listing of the telecom firms.

And Lastly, we also believe that with the listing of the telecoms firms on the DSE, it should now be compulsory for other foreign firms operating in Tanzania with a considerably big sum of operations and capital, to list on the DSE for Tanzanians to own shares.