Shareholders of the merged Tigo and Airtel have named General Manager of Tigo Ghana, Roshi Motman, Chief Executive Officer of the merged company, which is yet to be given a name.

This was contained in a statement issued by Tigo Ghana announcing that it had finally completed the merger transaction with Airtel in Ghana.

The merger was first announced on March 3, 2017, and it took six months for the National Communications Authority (NCA) to give its final approval.

The successful closing of the transaction will see both companies hold equal ownership and governance rights in the combined entity, with Roshi Motman steering affairs. Airtel Ghana Boss, Lucy Quist, has bowed out.

The merged Airtel-Tigo will be the second largest mobile network operator in the country, with about 10 million subscribers, pushing Vodafone to third place with about 9 million subscribers.

"It is envisaged that the combined business will offer improved coverage and better quality of service to customers in both urban and rural Ghana, enabling wider access to communication solutions for businesses and mobile financial services to the Ghanaian customers," the statement said.

The Tigo-Airtel merged company has already declared its intention to put the market leader, MTN on its toes and drive improved services.

It said, "through an efficient delivery of superior customer experience,high-speedd data, innovative product mix and wider network coverage the new combined business will challenge the market leader, improve the competitive dynamics of the telecoms sector and in the long-term, strengthen the mobile ecosystem."

Meanwhile, the approved merger comes with some conditions, which include the fact that the two would have to run parallel networks and merge gradually as they go along over a period of 18 months.

They are also mandated to draft an extensive customer education programme to ensure they sensitize customers about how every change is likely to affect customers.

The regulator expects that the merger would have no or very little negative implications for customers.

It is also important to note that customers of both networks will get to keep their 026/056 and 027/057 numbers until such a time when any changes will be announced.

The shareholders of Tigo and Airtel are Millicom International Cellular S.A. ("Millicom") and Bharti Airtel Limited (“Airtel”) respectively.