PANO - Uwimana Bienvenu is the first Burundian who has become a manager of a technical section of the Vietnamese-invested mobile network in Burundi although he has only worked for Viettel Burundi - Lumitel for over a year.
Uwimana Bienvenu (32 years old) started working for Viettel Burundi in December 2014 as a technician. After a year, he was promoted as the chief of the SOS (information rescue) team. Bienvenu studied information technology at Initelematic University, the only one in the Burundian capital city of Bujumbura offering a computer science degree.
Bienvenu faced a lot of difficulties during his first days working for Viettel Burundi, Lumitel. Despite the fact that he had studied information technology at university, he did not have any working skills and experience so everything was completely new to him.
During the upheaval in April 2015, Lumitel employees had a very difficult time as they had to work hard and faced numerous dangers when going out to fix broken cables in a chaotic circumstance. What is more, political parties encouraged Burundians to stop working to join their strikes. Against this backdrop, both Vietnamese and local workers of Lumitel were united working side by side and overcame all difficulties and hardships. Thanks to its passionate and enthusiastic workers like Bienvenu, Lumitel was kept operational and the only telecom company in the country could still serve local people during that upheaval time.
According to the chief of the SOS team, the great team spirit among Lumitel workers was key to success during the volatile political situation.
Bienvenu has learnt a lot from his Vietnamese colleagues. From knowing nothing, he has become competent at all technical aspects. He is the manager of a group of five Burundian technicians.
The chief of the technical team at the representative office in the Burundian capital city of Bujumbura is in charge of a complex network of 51 out of Lumitel’s 135 base transceiver stations and 61 out of its 180 cable systems.
Bienvenu manages the technical team but still directly works in the field with his staff, regardless of the weather and time.
During the upheaval in the Burundian capital, the chief of the SOS team at the Bujumbura representative office was working in danger on one hand, and he was worried about his family on the other hand. He and his team were often threatened by strikers when they went out to fix line problems, particularly broken cables, during the night. But he kept working hard as his Vietnamese colleagues worked closely with him and his team.
Nominated as one of Viettel’s six most outstanding global employees, Bienvenu arrived in Ha Noi to attend the awards ceremony. “It is really amazing that I have traveled that far.”
He said that in comparison with other mobile service providers, Lumitel has the largest coverage area. Especially, it has gained trust of local people as it was the only telecom operator still working when the political upheaval took place. What is more, Lumitel has been the first to provide 4G services. But what is the most important thing is Lumitel always considers Burundians’ benefits its top priority. Therefore, Bienvenu believes that Lumitel will soon become the number one mobile service provider in the country within 2 years (Lumitel is in second place now).
PANO reporters