Mr Moakohi MODISANYANE Deputy Permanent Secretary, Botswana Government Mr. Chairman, Botswana is one of the countries in Africa who pio-neered the liberalisation process of the telecommu-nications sector having realized the benefits of what liberalisation did to other countries that embarked on the exercise before us. Since the liberalisation of the sector started, teledensity for fixed telephony shot from 1 to 8 percent from 1996 to 2010 while that of the mobile sector shot from 0 in 1998 upon the licens-ing of two mobile operators to 135 percent in 2010. However, the infrastructure developments have been skewed to urban areas. In an effort to address the re-maining underserved areas and in the absence of a Universal Service Fund, the government has initiated a rural telecommunications programme targeting 197 villages that had no services. The programme is due to be completed in May 2011. In 2006, the Botswana Government further announced major reforms in the telecommunications sector whereby the major telecommunications operators were allowed to offer both fixed and mobile teleph-ony without any technology restrictions. Restrictions on voice over the internet protocol (VOIP) were also lifted. Mr. Chairman; Let me start by congratulating you for ascending to the noble seat of Chairperson of the Plenipotentiary Conference 2010. Let me also join others who have spoken before me by thanking the Government of Mexico and her people for hosting us in this beautiful city of Guadalajara. I am sure all delegates will agree with me that the gesture extended to us by the host is spectacular. Mr. Chairman, the reforms in the communications sector are continuing because of the changes in tech-nology and the challenges the country is facing. In this regard, the country’s policy, legal and regulatory framework is undergoing reforms. All these efforts are geared towards improving competition in the Botswana Telecommunications market, with the in-tention to enhance the level of economic development 192