Amirzai Sangin
Amirzai Sangin | |
---|---|
Minister of Communications & IT of Afghanistan | |
Assumed office 2004 | |
President | Hamid Karzai |
Personal details | |
Born | 6 June 1949 Paktika Province, Afghanistan |
Amirzai Sangeen Sangin (
.As a founding member of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, he has made significant contributions to Afghanistan's education, agriculture and medical sectors over the last two and a half decades.
Early life and education
Sangin was born as the first son to Amirgul Gulshakhel, a tailor, on 6 June 1949 in the Urgun District of Paktika Province. He has three brothers and eight sisters. Sangin attended primary school in Urgun and secondary school in Gardez, Paktia Province. He graduated from Afghanistan's Telecommunications Training Center (TTC), and arrived in London in 1969, where he studied for six years, obtaining an engineering degree in electronics and communications from South London College, London.
Sangin speaks Dari, Pashto, English and Swedish.[2]
Career
He was an instructor at TTC from 1975 to 1978, and served as its rector from 1978 to 1980.
After the
In 1982, Sangin joined Swedish Telecom. He worked for King Khaled International Airport in Saudi Arabia as a communications project team member from 1982 to 1985 and then, for the next five years, was involved in the design, development and implementation of mobile networks in Sweden. A founding member of Swedish Telecom International (now called Telia International), Sangin was a leader in obtaining international bids, winning 8 GSM licenses in Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Hungary, Italy, Namibia and India from 1990 to 2000. He has held several senior-level management positions in the establishment of highly successful companies.
Returning to
Sangin was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Afghan Telecom in July 2004. As CEO, he worked to build the Afghan Telecom organization by developing new processes and procedures and improving issues of interconnection. He left this position to become Minister of Communications & IT of I.R of Afghanistan in 2004 and has been in this post for the last 8 years. During this period, under the visionary leadership of Mr. Sangin, there has been tremendous progress in the Telecommunication sector. The telecom sector has attracted the biggest Foreign Direct Investment totaling to $ 2 billion and annual revenues to the treasury are over $200 million. The telecom sector has created over 100,000 well-paid jobs. Telecom services cover over 85% of the population and there are over 18 million phone users in the country. Broadband digital networks, DSL, 3G and Wimax are being implemented in major cities and should reach more than 50% of population by end of 2014. Most parts of the country as well as neighboring countries are connected via optical fibre networks. As a result of this progress, the telecom sector today plays vital role in the lives of the Afghan people and in the economic development of Afghanistan.
References
- ^ "Afghan Government 2009" (PDF). Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 28 September 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-10.
- ^ a b "Sangin, Eng. Amirzai Sangeen"; Afghan Biographies; 2019.
External links
- Minister Biography, Ministry of Communication & Information Technology.