Zambia to get fourth mobile network operator, part-owned by Isabel Dos Santos
Zambia has awarded licences to start a fourth mobile network operator to a company, part-owned by Isabel Dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former president whose influence is waning in her home country. Unitel International Holdings, in which Dos Santos owns a 25% stake, has pledged to invest more than $350m through a local unit and will compete with market leader MTN Group and Bharti Airtel. The expansion comes less than four months after new Angola President João Lourenço announced an auction for a new operator in the oil-rich African nation and the part-privatisation of a state-owned telecommunications provider, challenging Unitel in its home market. Dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman with a net worth of about $2.4bn, was stripped of her role as chair of Angola’s state-oil company last year as Lourenço sought to reduce the influence of the family of his predecessor. This month, she was forced to deny wrongdoing related to a transfer of $38.2m from the oil company Sonangol, fol...
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