Vuyani Jarana, the former chief officer of Vodacom Business and former CEO of South African Airways, has invested in mobile telecommunications infrastructure supplier Mobax and will become the company’s chairman.
Mobax CEO Fred Watkins said the company will soon rebrand itself to “realise the vision that Jarana hopes to achieve” over the next five years.
“What we want to become is an infrastructure company that telecoms operators can rely on during times of difficulty and challenge,” Watkins said.
“Instability of the electricity grid and escalating electricity costs present challenges of network quality and cost escalations not matched by telco revenue increases. At Mobax we see an opportunity to partner with telcos and provide them with power-as-a-service solutions up to the data centre level.”
Mobax offers “green energy-biased” solutions, which Jarana said gives operators network availability, carbon footprint and operational expenditure predictability benefits.
He said input costs in the ICT sector across Africa are largely driven by imports, leading to significant capital outflows. A concerted effort should be made to localise appropriate portions of ICT industry spend in the continent, he added.
Job creation
“Manufacturing and assembly of some of input technologies should, to the extent possible and practical, be done at regional level to support job creation and development of component ecosystem in various countries of the region.”
Mobax, Jarana said, wants to partner with other small and medium enterprises in its infrastructure build programme. — (c) 2020 NewsCentral Media