ALTECH in Fight against Telecom Capital Flight

In the last ten years, telecommunications business in Nigeria has been branded the fastest growing business in Africa and the world, with an investment turnover of $18 billion (N2.8 trillion) from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) however, investigations have shown that only about 20 per cent of such amount remained in Nigeria as the greater part of the money left the shores of Nigeria through capital flight.

The blamed, as it has always been, could be deduced from poor internal manufacturing base of the country and the non-patronage of locally manufactured products while local content development paradigm remains allusive.
 
Since Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) was introduced to Nigeria, one area that mostly hurts the industry and the country at large is the inability of the government to ensure all transactions related to printing of recharge card vouchers and other associated plastic cards are wholly localized.

Sola Bajomo, business development manager, ALTECH West Africa Limited, the largest recharged card manufacturing company in West Africa, while speaking to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek at the just concluded CardExpo 2012 said telecoms return on investments (RoI) would continue to depreciate if the situation lingers.

Vouchers are valuable in mobile phones and internet usage. For definition purpose, a voucher is a bond worth a certain monetary value and which may be spent only for specific reasons or on specific goods. Examples include (but are not limited to) housing, travel, and food vouchers.

 The term voucher is also a synonym for receipt and is often used to refer to receipts used as evidence of, for example, the declaration that a service has been performed or that expenditure has been made.

In telecom business, voucher is a recharge number sold to a customer to recharge their SIM card with money and to extend the card's availability period. Vouchers are typically sold at retail outlets, such as phone stores run by the mobile operator or by distributors, grocery stores, and gas stations.

They are the prevalent form of recharge for prepaid mobile phone. For instance, in countries such as Italy and Spain well over 90% of consumers use vouchers and the UK where over 60% buy vouchers at retail.

 In other countries such as the United States, Ireland, and many Nordic countries, there is a growing trend of customers using Card Not Present recharge options such as online payments, or by using their mobile handsets to call the operator and recharge with a representative (CSR) or through their IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system. A growing number of prepaid mobile operators such as Meteor in Ireland and T-Mobile USAare offering the option to send an SMS (text to pay), or use handset applications such as WAP or BREW technology. in the northern times

For internet purposes, a voucher can also be used online in the form of an e-voucher. These types of vouchers can be entered when shopping online and the relevant vouchers value added to your order. It can take the form of any code.

 Many companies have opted to use voucher codes for the last few years but with a massive incline in use towards the end of 2008/early 2009.

There are many internet websites devoted to promoting these deals and vouchers online, as well as Facebook groups offering items such as student discounts and 2-for-1 restaurant voucher deals.

Apparently, there are a small number of sites that use a disreputable method of click to reveal method for dropping cookies on the consumer's computer, which has led to the introduction of guidelines for voucher use in Internet Marketing.

More so, most video game special editions come with a voucher for exclusive content in-game. For example, the Gran Turismo 5 Collector's Edition comes with a voucher for 5 exclusive DLC "Chrome Line" cars for the full game.

Also, pre-ordering games at certain shops may get you vouchers to content only available if you pre-order at that store.

That is the more reason, Nigeria must ensure the gains accruable from this business can be harnessed to better the worth of the people, particularly the army of youths seeking employment. Even in tourism, vouchers are used as proof of a named customer's right to take a service at a specific time and place. Service providers collect them to return to the tour operator or travel agent that has sent that customer, to prove they have given the service. So, the life of a voucher is as below:

Also, voucher serves as an accounting document representing an internal intent to make a payment to an external entity, such as a vendor or service provider.

A voucher is produced usually after receiving a vendor invoice, after the invoice is successfully matched to a purchase order.

It usually contains detailed information regarding the payee, the monetary amount of the payment, a description of the transaction, and more. In accounts payable systems, a process called a "payment run" is executed to generate payments corresponding to the unpaid vouchers. These payments can then be released or held at the discretion of an accounts payable supervisor or the company controller.

Any documentary evidence supporting account entries, establishing the arithmetic accuracy of the transaction, may also be referred to as a voucher—for example, a bill, invoice, receipt, salary and wages sheet, memorandum of association, counterfoil of paying-in slip, counterfoil of cheque book, trust deed, etc.

That’s why ALTECH West Africa limited with a 70 per cent market share in recharged cards in Nigeria deserves commendation for her effort in combating the flight as witnessed today.

The company’s 70 000 square feet manufacturing facility has an annual capacity of 1.2 billion paper products and has the capacity to print and deliver over 1 million plastic cards per month to private and corporate clients. The plastic card plant can manufacture and personalise various types of cards including smart cards with contact, contactless and magstripe and is certified by VISA, Interswitch and eTranzact.

The company also provides e-Security Solutions in affiliation with Symantec, Verisign and eiQSecureVue.     
 
Interestingly, the paper printing facility is equipped with the latest technology and has an installed capacity of 100 million paper product per month. We have the capability to print high quality secure and non secure paper products. “Our paper production facility is segregated into secure and non secure section to provide our different clients with the highest level of security.

“At the secure paper section, we can produce and personalize any type of card products that the customer desires with the highest level of quality and security. We incorporate features that are difficult to replicate, simulate, transpose and alter.

“Some of the features of that we can incorporate into the cards include: Hot-stamped holographic foil, 2D holographic foil,  Magnetic stripe and we have the capability to incorporate variable data across the entire card to include PIN data, card serial numbers and expiry date,” Bajomo said.

She expressed the company’s concern on the level of capital flight in the country, stressing that the situation, “weakens the Naira and depletes Nigeria’s foreign”.
She believes that the sector can become better managed when steady power supply and other basic infrastructure are guaranteed.