They Want to Ban Facebook

Rumor has it that the Government in Namibia plans to Ban Facebook. The namibian sun reported 'T'here is speculation that the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Joel Ka-paanda, had submitted a proposal to Cabinet to block the social network throughout the country.

Now this has sparked a heavy debate as to the impact facebook has on Namibian socioeconomic paradigm. Firstly i am confident that very few people earn an income directly from using facebook, i know many companies in namibia use Facebook as socila media marketing tool so there are people in Namibia that essentialy get paid to use facebook.

On the other hand many parents can argue that Facebook distracts their kids, in terms of consuming time and accessing negative information and possibly engage with harmful people i.e peaodophiles and all sort of creeps!!

I think Facebook can be used by the ministry as a tool to engage ICT use in every day life in Namibia with relation to NDP4 objectives. Study have shown that Namibia has more active cell phone users than its population and majority of users access the internet via mobile.

Leo Bringing a Knife to gun fight

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When I first came to Namibia I was shocked at how cheap texting and calling is on MTC then soon realized that everybody has an MTC number and only a few people have a Leo number. And I thought wow talk about having the lions share.

    

Now with the recent sale of Leo for only two dollars and a threat to liquidate got me thinking, and eventually came to the conclusion that the mobile telecommunication industry in Namibia is a monopoly and the only reason why sms and calls are cheap is based on predatory pricing by MTC so that Leo can get chewed up and fail.

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Now here is a funny story; Leo was owned by Guinea Fowl Investments which is actually a joint venture by two banks NedBank and Investec Bank, Leo was then was recently sold to Telecom Namibia. Bearing in mind that all of telecom Namibia shares are in the hands of  Namibian Post and Telecommunications holding (NPTH) which is 100% owned by the government of Namibia. Which means Tax-payers money is going to pay for loses made by Leo which could have been an indirect effect of MTC's pricing and marketing strategies. Now here is the pun the government owns 66% of MTC through NPTH. So in a nut shell the private sector is getting bailed out with tax payer’s money, due to anti-competitive behavior of MTC.

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 Nobody in their right mind will buy Leo unless its to acquire  infrastructure or a total takeover. I mean with reported exposure of NAD 450 million and monthly losses of over NAD 2 million clearly indicates that Guinea Fowl Investments did not adopt a hands on approach in protecting its investment.  So to the rescue was none other than a government entity which will eventually  create a monopoly in the Namibian Telecom industry that will have cartel tendencies and legally is neither a monopoly nor a cartel.

 The communication authority (CRAN) to me is just another tool used by the puppet master, to justify his actions in producing a good show for the audience. Any way I put my hat down for a game well played by NPTH in maintaining the wealth in the hands of the people of Namibia.