Minister's Statement, Dated 6th June 2010

 

Dear Countrymen,
I have now completed my first 5-year term as Minister of Communications and Information Technology. I thank our President for his continued confidence and proposing me to continue at this post for a second 5-year  term. Unfortunately I failed to obtain the Parliament's vote of confidence and, therefore, I currently continue to serve at this ministry as Acting Minister.

 

I am very happy that during my first 5-year term we have witnessed a tremendous progress in the telecom sector in our dear country. The progress was made possible by adopting a Telecom Policy which created an enabling environment for private sector investments and key elements of this policy were the adoption of suitable legal framework, creation of a transparent regulator, adoption of a transparent mechanism for issuing of licenses, allocation of adequate spectrum and creation of Telecom Development Fund for development of telecom services in rural areas.

 

Successful implementation of these policies has resulted in unrivalled progress in the telecom and ICT sector of our country. The telecom sector is an excellent example of a good Public Private Partnership. Facts and figures show that the telecom sector of Afghanistan is now ahead or at par with many countries in the region.

 

Back in 2002 there were no phones in our country and our people hade to travel to neighboring countries to make and receive phone calls. Today our country has leapfrogged into the digital age. The telecom services have spread across the country and are covering more than 80% of the population. The number of phone users has been growing rapidly reaching 13.5 million users at the end of March 2010 which is equivalent to over 50% penetration.

 

The telecom sector has attracted the largest foreign direct investment into Afghanistan. Today we have 4 GSM operators and one CDMA and fixed network operator and together they have invested over 1.5 billion US$ in Afghanistan.

These investments have resulted in over 100,000 new jobs and annual revenues of over US$130 million to the treasury of Afghanistan in the form of taxes, duties and fees.

Competition has resulted in falling prices and average monthly spending per phone user has dropped from $54 in 2002 to $5.6 in 2008.

 

Our prestigious optical fibre backbone project in the form of a ring around the country with links to neighboring countries is now ready to serve the nation and the region. It will enhance the growth of ICT satisfying not only the needs of today or tomorrow but the needs of future generations.

 

Digital landline networks in major cities of the country have been implemented and over 200,000 digital landlines together with DSL technologies enable us to provide broadband services to hundreds of thousands of our citizens.

It is virtually impossible for me to convey to you the enormity of the impact that this fast progress in the telecom sector have had in the improvement of the quality of life of our people and upon the economy of Afghanistan. It is not just the rich or the middle class, it is in fact all the people including the very poor who have phone and is using it to help them in all aspects of their daily lives.

 

The enormous interest of the young generation in ICT is greatly encouraging and gives me great hope for the future of our country. In addition to the public schools and institutes, thousands of private ICT training centres have come up across the country in almost every street corner where young people receive ICT training during their spare time.  

 

The last 5 years was a period of mobile phone revolution in Afghanistan. Our vision is to make the next 5 years a period of broadband Internet revolution in Afghanistan. By end of 2014, the mobile phone penetration shall be at least 100% and the broadband internet penetration shall be 50%. Our major programmes for realizing this vision includes issuing of 3G and Wimax licenses, expansion of the optical fibre and digital networks, using the Telecom Development Funds to expand services to rural areas and villages, expansion of ICT services and applications in Government, creation of world class electronic National Identity card, expansion of ICT into healthcare and education services.

 

I thank my team in the Ministry of Communications and IT and all those who are working in the private sector companies for their hard and sincere work to bring this enormous success to our country. I am thankful to Allah for the progress we have made so far and pray that we may successfully implement our future programmes to better serve our country and our people.

 

Amirzai Sangin
Acting Minister of Communications and IT

* Achivements End of 2006