Tigo invests more than half a billion dollars into Ghanaian economy

The Board Chairman of Milicom Ghana Ltd., operators of Tigo, says the company has invested half a billion dollars into the Ghanaian economy, and spent $680,000 on training and development.

Mr. Tismark Inja said these when the company inaugurated its refurbished offices in Accra last week.

He added that Tigo currently has 1,190 base stations, nine switches, about 2.5 million subscribers and a coverage rate of between 65% in the Eastern region and 97% in the Greater Accra region.

Millicom is the first mobile phone company to be licensed in Ghana in 1991. It started operations in 1992 and operated the brand name Mobitel.

In 1996, the brand owners, Millicom International Cellular (MIC) changed the brand name in Ghana to Tigo, in line with its strategy of having a single brand name for all its global operations.

Mr. Percy Grundy, Out-going Chief Executive Officer of the company also said, Tigo had reinvested every cedi it made in Ghana back into the economy.

He said the company now employs 411 permanent staff, 207 outsourced jobs and 36 on contract basis.

Tigo is one of the six mobile phone companies operating in the country. The others are MTN, Kasapa, Zain, Vodafone and Glo, which is yet to start operations.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi