After naming Eng. Hany Mahmoud as the Minister of Communications and Information Technology after having a 10-year-experience in Vodafone Egypt, Eng. Omar El-Sheikh, who held the position of Government Relation Director in the same company, has been appointed as Telecom Egypt’s chairman. Apparently, Vodafone has become the main supplier of leaders for the telecommunications sector in Egypt.
Experts are anxious that Vodafone’s cadres will dominate the sector, given that the top leaders may still have loyalty to Vodafone, which has special interests in the Egyptian market. In their view, Vodafone Egypt will be assuming the upper hand in the telecommunications sector.
Eng. Amr Mousa, information security expert, stated that appointing Eng. Omar El-Sheikh as Telecom Egypt’s chairman stirs up many concerns, pointing out that the fellowship between El-Sheikh and the Minister will open many question regarding the nature of the relationship between Telecom Egypt and Vodafone in the coming period.
He added that the previously-mentioned appointments will also anticipate ” a conflict of interests” among the public and private sectors in the current stage, particularly due to Telecom Egypt’s continuous demand on obtaining a license for being a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). He further stressed that launching this license will face a number of problems, including the appointment of the new chairman
It is worth noting that Telecom Egypt’s board has chosen Amr El-Sheikh to be the company’s chairman after hours from his appointment by Prime Minister Dr.Hesham Kandil as a board member.
