• Market Watch

'Consumers should not be paying twice' - Nghikembua

• 12 Hours Ago - 2025-07-17 00:00:00

“The consumer should not be paying twice for the same infrastructure,” said Emilia Nghikembua, CEO of the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN), at a stakeholder validation workshop in Windhoek on Wednesday.
Held at Droombos, the workshop reviewed Namibia’s 2016 infrastructure-sharing framework. It brought together stakeholders from government, industry, and civil society to assess its impact and future direction.
Nghikembua said digital transformation is now a top priority for both the public and private sectors. “As regulators, we are reviewing the framework to see which elements can drive this digital agenda,” she said. “It’s not just about building infrastructure; it’s about sharing it.”
A Regulatory Ex-Post Assessment of Communications Technologies (REACT), conducted by CREME with support from TNG and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), evaluated the framework’s implementation. Nghikembua said such reviews are essential to determine whether regulations are delivering value and having the intended impact.
The current regulations, enabled by Sections 48 and 50 of the Communications Act, mandate passive infrastructure sharing, such as towers and power supply systems. This has seen some voluntary uptake. However, active sharing (including antennas and switches) remains a major challenge.
“Passive sharing is happening without issue. But active sharing is the elephant in the room,” Nghikembua said. Disputes around this issue have led to legal battles, with some still pending in court or with the Namibia Competition Commission.
Despite concerns over dispute resolution, Nghikembua maintains that the regulations are supportive rather than restrictive. She added that international comparisons show that peer countries favour flexible, facilitative approaches to infrastructure sharing.
“The goal is consumer benefit,” she emphasised. “We must ensure people are not paying twice for the same infrastructure.”
The REACT report also benchmarked Namibia against countries with similar ICT and socio-economic profiles, such as Botswana, Kenya, Ghana, and Mauritius. It recommends improved transparency, better monitoring tools, and clear guidelines to support fair competition.
Nghikembua said if regulatory updates are pursued, further public consultations will follow. “We want your input on how to make this framework work better,” she said. “It must encourage market entry and above all, protect consumers.”
The discussion follows a recent Competition Commission ruling against a 2012 tripartite agreement that gave Telecom Namibia and MTC exclusive access to NamPower’s dark fibre network, a deal deemed “prohibitive and abusive.”