Raphael Mohlala, director and CEO at Phakamo.
South African business automation IT services company Phakamo Holdings has revealed plans for Sub-Saharan expansion following a successful trip to the United Kingdom.
Currently focusing on upgrading payment and transport systems with technology, Johannesburg-based Phakamo aims to roll out the solutions to various African countries.
Starting with South Africa, projects in Tanzania and Ghana are soon to be confirmed with a fourth country to be announced soon.
By employing Masabi technology, transport tickets are replaced through an Android- and iOS- based payment system on mobile phones.
Speaking to HumanIPO, Raphael Mohlala, director and chief executive officer (CEO), said: “In terms of opportunity, they (Masabi) are quite big.”
However, the team is working on USSD (unstructured supplementary service data) solutions to also cater for feature phone users, prevalent in Africa.
Mohlala explained he has contacts in a number of countries, including Nigeria, because of his previous job as supplier of technology to Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and National Electoral Commission (NEC) election events.
After recently partnering with Alfresco, Phakamo is now also integrating the UK-based company’s open source solutions.
Mohlala said Phakamo became the local representative Alfresco had been looking for.
“He (an Alfresco shareholder) said look, this is a blessing in disguise. We went to South Africa three months back and we need a local partner,” said Mohlala.
The partnership is mainly focused on commercialisation.
Mohlala spoke at the final event of the 2013 Micro Enterprise Development Organisation (MEDO) International Trade Program (ITP), which took place in Bellville, South Africa, at the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB) last week.
