Tanzania’s leading technology and communication company, Vodacom Tanzania, has partnered with the government, to fortify financial payment systems to 127 local governments offices.
The partnership was witnessed on November 3rd by the Ministry of Regional Administration and Local Government (TAMISEMI) and Vodacom Tanzania Plc, with a clear intention of strengthening payments processes to benefit over 14 million Vodacom customers, when making their duly payments at councils and municipalities across the country.
Vodacom Tanzania, which is listed at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE), has taken a bold move within telecom business parameters, particularly with the present fintech take up and normalization in Tanzania, but also—Vodacom numbers catapulted their chances for the deal, as they are now—having 32.4 per cent of market share and 38.6 per cent of mobile money share, while their service revenue as indicated in its preliminary report (2019) grew to over $442 million, which is a 5.4 per cent rise.
In the same context, Vodacom Tanzania trading update (for the quarter ending June 2019) showed that mobile money platform (M-Pesa) customer base grew by 6.9 per cent to 7.3 million representing a 50.8 per cent penetration, compared to 7.0 million reported earlier this year.
Vodacom Tanzania, Minister for Regional Administration and Local Government, Suleiman Jaffo, gave a sound compliment on the vitality of digital payment platforms and their ability to process payments and gathering revenues, which will lead to enhancement of record management and reporting, which will run-down fraudulent tendencies and shoot up the government’s revenue collection.
“Paying through digital channels will save time that was previously spent on queues. Now we have M-Pesa, an efficient payment system that I believe will give us more time to address other development activities. I thank Vodacom for partnering with TAMISEMI on this initiative. I hope this service will make payments easier and benefit everyone by keeping records of transactions, improving financial security and increasing revenue collection in general,” Minister added.
As the leading telecom player across Tanzania which has over 55 million people distributed unevenly in 26 regions and 185 councils, Vodacom Tanzania might catch a significant breakthrough compared to its telecom counterparts, with less investment and reach than it has on the ground at present.
However, Vodacom Tanzania, M-Pesa Director, Epimack Mbeteni stated that Vodacom expects to elongate its services to other governmental and private entities, for the sake of providing safer, seamless and easier payment systems.
“A high percentage of Tanzanians are already using M-Pesa to process various payments like Luku, water bills, and road traffic fines. We are extending this service to local government authorities in order to improve the payment collection through our digital platform,” Mbeteni stated.
Patently, Vodacom Tanzania efforts shred any elements of doubts regarding its plans to take over telecoms in Tanzania. Since Vodacom Tanzania got listed in 2017, it has surged its unrelenting efforts to capture a decent share in the telecom market.
Per Vodacom financial reports, Vodacom Tanzania invested up to $74.4 million (16.7 per cent of its revenue) in expanding its reach, through upgrading capacity and modernizing its network, which means 4G network expansion across major cities in Tanzania.
Throughout the years, Vodacom Tanzania has added 197 3G sites and 322 4G sites to reach a total of 2429 3G sites, and 861 4G sites respectively in major cities.
Vodacom Tanzania believes that the partnership with TAMISEMI facilitates Vodacom customers to pay more than 205 local government bills (such as business licenses, building permits, parking fees, and many others) with utmost convenience and efficiency.
“We are all witnesses to M-Pesa on how it continues to change the payment ecosystem in the country. We hope that all payments in local government authorities will be easier, faster and more secure,” Mbatani commented.
