Residents in Ibba County of South Sudan’s Western Equatoria State have expressed happiness over the installation of the MTN mobile network in the area.
Residents used to travel 18 miles to Jebel Osman to access internet services from the Maridi MTN tower. Others used to travel close to Madebe Payam of Ibba County, where the MTN tower exists.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Friday, several residents said the installation of the MTN mobile network in the area has made communication easier and boosted local businesses.
Victoria Daniel, a businessman in Ibba, said that the installation of the mobile network has now paved the way for accessible communication in running her business.
“We are now communicating with our people whom we took long without hearing from them. We can now access the social media platforms without any interruption,” Victoria said
She added, “We had missed a lot of profitable programs because most of those programs are online, which we could not access due to lack of internet connectivity.”
Another resident, Mr. Jenty James, a health officer at Ibba County Primary Healthcare Center [PHCC], said the lack of internet connectivity had negatively affected work at the health facility.
“We used to go up to Jebel Osman to send reports. But now they have installed for our network, we would not go anymore to Jebel Osman or Madebe; we now sit in offices and send our reports,” she said.
For his part, Ibba County Commissioner Elisama Charles Babua confirmed that the community can now access MTN’s services, including internet connectivity that the county had lacked for several years.
“We can now access everything like WhatsApp and other social media platforms,” he said.
The local official explained that the MTN tower was erected in September this year and operationalized earlier this month. Charles said the technicians are now finalizing the work, and once it is done, the county will invite both the state and national authorities to witness the official launching of the MTN mobile network.