DAKAR, Senegal (AFP)--Shares in Sonatel, Senegal's biggest
telecom operator, will no longer be sold to France Telecom (FTE),
which was due to take a 52.2% controlling stake in the company, a
union official said Friday.
"The state abandons the sale of shares to France Telecom,"
Mamadou Aidara Diop, the coordinator of Senegal's telecoms labor
unions, told AFP after talks in Dakar.
"Instead, it will turn to banks for investment and make a public
share offer to involve [Senegal's] private sector," said Diop,
after a standoff between the Senegalese government and unions who
threatened a strike in protest at what they called "a
recolonization of the telecoms system by France."
Diop said a decision was made during talks between the unions
and officials of the Senegalese presidency, including Theirno
Ousmane Saye, President Abdoulaye Wade's special advisor on new
information technologies and communications.
Wade's son Karim, who has joined the prime minister's cabinet
and also attended the talks, stated on RTS state radio that state
policy now "is to involve the Senegalese in big development and
company schemes."
France Telecom currently holds 42.3% of Sonatel's capital and
the Senegalese state holds 17.28%.
On April 8, the government announced that it had signed an
agreement to allow France Telecom to buy 9.78% of the Sonatel
shares previously held by the state for 200 billion CFA francs
($400 million).
Senegalese Economy Minister Abdoulaye Diop said the state needed
the money raised by the transaction to finance infrastructure
projects and to pay the debts it has incurred with the private
sector.
Sonatel's trade unions also feared a cut in the number of 2,340
permanent jobs.