The Angolan Government, in the person of the President of the Republic, has just appropriated, through nationalization, the stake held by VIDATEL LIMITED in the share capital of UNITEL SA, corresponding to 25% of the share capital.
According to the presidential note, the Angolan State now owns the shares of UNITEL, "regardless of any formalities, free of any encumbrances or charges, being enforceable against third parties after registration“, informs the statement.
"The management of the now appropriate share is assigned to the STATE ASSET MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE (IGAPE) which represents the State in all inherent rights, under the terms of the law. It is the responsibility of the ministerial department responsible for Public Finance to pay compensation when and if due, under the terms of the law“, can be read in the document.
To inform that nationalization is a process marked by nationalization companies. Thus, its meaning is associated with greater control by the States over the companies that make up a country's economy, as well as their products and services.
In this case, UNITEL takes on a role of public utility, so that the private sector plays a less active role in the economy, giving more space to state-owned companies. In addition, the objective of this nationalization, taking into account its membership in Angoa, is associated with the use of the nation's resources to develop and build a strong state.
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UNITEL is a service provider in the area of mobile telecommunications (cellular telephony), having been the first to operate with GSM technology in the Angolan market. It was established in 1998 and entered the market in 2001. In the third quarter of the same year, it became market leader in number of customers.
Since December 2004, the company has been providing mobile network coverage in the capitals of 18 provinces.[1] In December 2011, it began offering coverage to all municipal offices in the country.[2] When it started its activity in Luanda and Benguela, the company operated on GSM 900, it currently operates on GSM 1800.
With more than 14 kilometers of Fiber Optic, UNITEL has been a real driver of technological development by providing a network capable of supporting the transmission of Voice and Data calls with quality, reliability and transmission speed, essential factors for the success and the excellence of the service provided to its Clients.
UNITEL is the largest telecommunications operator in Angola, with 100% coverage of the country's Municipalities.
UNITEL's high coverage is the result of investment in the construction of a national fiber network, with more than fourteen thousand kilometers installed in the last eight years and which continues to grow. The most recent example of this growth is the construction of the Submarine Cable UNITEL Norte, which provides connectivity to the enclave of Cabinda with over 8Tbps of capacity delivered to our 38Africa CLS in Luanda.
This network is built with redundancy in order to guarantee the maximum quality of the service provided, so that for most of the network an alternative path must always be available, this is the UNITEL quality standard for each solution we deliver.
