MTN WECA head office comes to Ghana

Accra, Jan. 11, GNA - The MTN Group has confirmed that the Head office of the West and Central Africa (WECA) region would to be located in Ghana, a statement in Accra said on Monday.

The WECA regional office comprises of nine operating units - Nigeria, Benin, Cote D'Ivoire Liberia, Cameroon, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Congo Brazzaville and Ghana.

Ms. Mawuena Adjo Dumor, Corporate Service Executive of MTN Ghana, said Ghana was chosen because of its friendly business environment among other things.

She said the WECA headquarters would be located at MTN Ghana's head office in Accra and would be the administrative hub of the nine countries that constituted the WECA region.

Hitherto, the WECA regional office director, Mr. Christian De Faria, who is also Vice President of the region, did not have a stable office so had been moving from country to country to do his work, but he would now work from Ghana.

"The establishment of the office in Ghana provides enormous benefits not only to our business but to the country and we are excited to be hosting it," Ms Dumor said.

She said the benefits include leveraging economies of scale in respect of supply of telecoms infrastructure across the region, which will have positive implications for the national agenda to make Ghana the gateway to West Africa.

Ms Dumor said it would also create opportunities to apply Ghanaian knowledge, expertise and experience to other MTN operating units' technical and stakeholder engagement initiatives.

Ghana has been recognized at the MTN Group level for execution excellence in Marketing and Social Responsibility.

"Indeed the Ghana operating unit continues to support knowledge sharing in these key areas of the business," Ms Dumor said.

There are three Regional Offices within the MTN Group - the WECA regional office; the South East Africa (SEA) regional office; and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional office.

The MTN Group recorded 108 million subscribers at the close of September 30, 2009, out of which the WECA region made a very significant contribution.

In Ghana MTN is the market leader, commanding some eight million out of the close to 15 million mobile phone subscribers in the country, representing over 54 per cent market share.

The MTN Group is a global sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup slated for June in South Africa.

GNA