Gamtel, the country’s premier telecommunications company and one time highly-heralded giant of Africa in terms of telecommunication density and technological innovation is faced with an increasing pressure from competition, the Vice-President and Minister of Women’s Affairs, Dr Aja Isatou Njie-Saidy, told National Assembly Members on Wednesday.

Responding to a question posed by Hon. Momodou L.K Sanneh, the Minority Leader and member for Kiang West, as to what the Ministry of Communications, Information and Information Technology and Gamtel is doing to regain its lost glory, especially in the area of networking, Njie-Saidy said the country’s telecommunications industry in recent years have undergone major liberalisation process. This, she added, has resulted in the issuance of licences to private operators in the GSM mobile and Internet Service Provider (ISP) sectors.

“The one time highly-heralded giant of Africa in terms of telecommunication density and technological innovation is faced with an increasing pressure from competition,” she said.

According to Vice-President Njie-Saidy, with the current dispensation, the new management of Gamtel is embarking on the reincarnation of the lost glory.

“This is done through rehabilitation, upgrading and modernisation of its obsolete infrastructure to be replaced by new and latest state-of-the earth technologies,” she told deputies.

“As a long-term solution Gamtel, in collaboration with government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Africa Coast to Europe Submarine consortium in a bid to acquire Gambia’s own landing point and direct international access to the outside world,” she stated, adding that negotiations and consultations were in the offing to realise this project.

She, however, stated that the realisation of the aforementioned assertions would undoubtedly restore Gamtel’s lost glory. This, she went on, means the spirit of team work between Gamtel management and government must continue to be nurtured, and thus help Gamtel regain the position of being one of the leading telecommunication companies in Africa.