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RPC Data concludes citizen empowerment deal Gaborone, Botswana, 23rd October 2006 – RPC Data Ltd (RPC), an international IT solutions and services provider listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE), has today announced the conclusion of a citizen empowerment agreement. The transaction involves the sale of 26% of the issued share capital, and means that the majority of shares of RPC are now in the hands of Batswana. Along with the recent appointment of a majority of citizens to the Board of Directors, this agreement brings RPC directly in line with the goals and objectives of Botswana’s 2016 Vision. “Since the Initial Public Offering of shares to the public on the BSE in 2000, RPC has pursued two principle objectives,” says Managing Director, Rob Pool. “The first has been to provide highly experienced and talented ICT consulting skills to meet the demands of an ‘Information Society’ in Botswana, and the second has been to grow into new markets outside our borders and become the ‘Flagship’ of the Botswana ICT industry.” In this way, he claims, RPC is perfectly in line with the “National ICT Vision” published in April 2004, which includes the desire to make Botswana “a globally competitive, knowledge and information society where lasting improvements in social, economic and cultural development are achieved through effective use of ICT.” This would also make Botswana a regional ICT hub resulting in the country’s ICT sector becoming globally competitive. Chairperson of RPC, Ms Tebelelo Seretse a lawyer and successful businesswoman in her own right says she and her colleagues are mindful of the importance of a strong ICT based industry in Botswana. She says, “Citizen Empowerment in the ICT sector of Botswana is a sometimes contentious issue. Businesses are caught between the need to take advantage of non-citizens who have specialist skills and experience, and the need to continue to build a citizen base of service providers who do not simply rely on subcontracting work to foreign companies.”
This deal has been made by non-citizen shareholders in support of the company’s stated intention to make the company more locally controlled. The intent to increase citizen participation has been a consistent goal of RPC, and is in line with the Citizen Empowerment goals of the Botswana Government “Vision 2016” policy document. Pool said, “We also hope to encourage the Government and its independent procurement agency, PPADB, to recognize that a company listed on the Stock Exchange, with hundreds of citizen shareholders, should be treated as a local company. At present there is no way for the public procurement process to acknowledge a listed company as local. The current scenario considers a locally listed company similarly a foreign one.”
RPC Data Ltd, the largest integrated information technology services company in Botswana has always specialised in software development, management consulting and systems integration. Listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange since 1999, the company plays a major role in the Botswana IT Sector.
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