Celtel International has operations in Nigeria, Niger, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Malawi, Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Gabon.
Sources close to Celtel Nigeria's offices, said the intention to become the top 10 mobile company formed the basis for bringing together over 22 senior management representatives from its regulatory departments across the 15 African and seven Middle East countries that make up the Zain Group.
Affirming this strategy, the chief regulatory officer at the Zain Group, Mohammed Shabib said that the four-day workshop, which ended over the weekend in Bahrain, afforded them the opportunity to share industry best practices.
The workshop that was held at the Elite Resort and Spa Bahrain, he said formed a platform for the group's regulatory teams to share experiences and learning from the very disparate regulatory environments in Africa and the Middle East.
According to Shabib, participants considered very seriously regulations at different regulatory environments within which the Zain Group operates. As said by him, almost all the group's 22 operations on the continent and the Middle East have to function in regulatory environments that are different.
Shabib noted that in some countries, regulation was still in the development stages or early implementation stages, pointing out however that through the sharing of experiences and skills across the board they would be able to rise.
"We will raise the standards of our own teams that will be of direct benefit and make a positive contribution to the regulatory environments in each country," he asserted.
Shabib also said that the workshop and related sessions were timely as they tend to assist in setting Zain's regulatory goals for 2008 in line with the group's strategic initiatives and plans to be among the top 10 global telcos in three years time, that is, by 2011.
The sessions also covered a wide range of regulatory subjects such as interconnection regimes, the arrangements for one operator to allow calls from one network to another, regulatory governance developments and technological innovations that could have direct influence on regulatory affairs and practices.
Worthy of note is that on the continent, Zain presently leverages its operations under the Celtel brand in 14 sub-Saharan countries and with the recent acquisition of Westel in Ghana brings the tally to 15 and prides itself as the most successful pan-African mobile network.
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