The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Orange Sierra Leone Mrs Aminata Kane Ndiaye has said that the main objective of the company this year, is to make sure that every part of Sierra Leone has Orange network. Speaking to the people of Yiffin in Nieni chiefdom on Thursday, the CEO said Yiffin is the first beneficiary of Orange this year as they have been connected to the most successful mobile brand in the country. “You are fortunate to have been connected to Orange and we are happy because you can now connect to other parts of the country for sending SMS, using the Orange money as a bank because you do not have one here, and for making swift and quality calls.” She said Orange is investing heavily in this project and they will be erecting 50 towers across the country this year alone that will cost the company millions of dollars to erect and to run on a daily basis. The CEO averred that communication is the key to development and it is a viable economic activity that creates employment and communication between people. She said those 50 towers they are erecting this year will create hundreds of jobs for the local people and easy access to communication and financial transactions. Aminata Kane Ndiaye, 33, was appointed CEO of Orange Sierra Leone replacing Sékou Dramé who was promoted to head the group Sonatel. She is the first female to be appointed to this position ever in Sierra Leone. Since the acquisition in July 2016, the group has invested more than 30 million euros in infrastructure upgrades, and the 50 towers to be erected this year alone is part of the investment. Last year they erected 35 towers taking the total to 236 including the one they just commissioned in Yiffin last week. Sierra Leone is home to Sonatel’s third West African subsidiary after Mali and Guinea Conakry, while Guinea Bissau is on the pipline. “Orange is present in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East and has more than 127 million customers at the end of June 2017. With 5.2 billion Euros in sales in 2016 (12% of the total), this area is a strategic priority for the Group, and Sierra Leone is very important in this our project Aminata, is a Senegalese graduate of HEC (France) and holds an MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). Perfectly bilingual, Aminata was previously the head of Orange Money’s. marketing department, and now she is the CEO Orange Sierra Leone. The CEO has made it very clear to her staff that before her time is up in Sierra Leone, their subscriber base should have doubled and the entire country should have been connected to Orange.

Monday February 11, 2019.