SONATEL Mobile Telecom Services (MIGA-70c580929b)

Countries
  • Sierra Leone
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Active
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
B
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Voting Date
Jun 21, 2018
Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a "board date" or "decision date." When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Borrower
Sonatel
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Communications
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Guarantee
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 97.20 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ MIGA website

Updated in EWS Aug 19, 2021

Disclosed by Bank May 17, 2018

Contribute Information
Can you contribute information about this project?
Contact the EWS Team

Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

Telecom operator Airtel originally launched mobile operations in 2000 under the ownership of Celtel, a telecom company operating in several African countries. In 2005, Celtel sold its ownership in Airtel to the Zain Group of Kuwait. In 2010, India's Bharti Airtel Ltd acquired Zain's telecom assets in Africa, notably in Mali, Burkina Faso, Republic of the Congo, Chad, and Sierra Leone. In July 2016, SONATEL and Orange, via its Middle East & Africa subsidiary (OMEA), acquired the shares of Airtel Sierra Leone Ltd (Airtel) and renamed the company Orange Sierra Leone with the operating licenses transferred to the new entity. The company plans to scale-up telecom infrastructure and services throughout Sierra Leone, including

  1. modernizing existing assets,
  2. expanding network coverage by deploying around 100 new tower sites by 2024 (300 sites currently operational and 30 of these sites are co-locations) notably in underserved and rural areas,
  3. improving network quality and reliability, and
  4. offering new services including mobile banking. Currently, Orange SL Ltd. operates 2 offices, 6 shops and 300 active network sites in Sierra Leone.
Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.
Private Actors Description
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

SONATEL was founded in 1985 as a public telecom operator and is now Senegal's largest company in revenue terms offering a wide range of fixed, mobile, internet, television and data solutions. Orange S.A., is a leading publicly listed French telecom 2 company with over 260 million customers globally whose largest shareholder is the French Government.

Private Actor 1 Private Actor 1 Role Private Actor 1 Sector Relation Private Actor 2 Private Actor 2 Role Private Actor 2 Sector
- - - - Orange S.A. Parent Company -
- - - - Orange Sierra Leone Client -
- - - - Sonatel SA, Client -

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

*Contact information not provided at the time of disclosure*

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF MIGA

The Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) is the independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who believe they are likely to be, or have been, adversely affected by an IFC or MIGA- financed project. If you submit a complaint to the CAO, they may assist you in resolving a dispute with the company and/or investigate to assess whether the IFC is following its own policies and procedures for preventing harm to people or the environment. If you want to submit a complaint electronically, you can email the CAO at CAO@worldbankgroup.org. You can learn more about the CAO and how to file a complaint at http://www.cao-ombudsman.org/

How it works

How it works