#Twitter picks Ghana for first Africa jobs

Twitter announced Monday it was recruiting eleven people in Ghana, the company’s first hires on the African continent, and plans to open an office there later.

The social media giant joins Facebook and other tech companies moving into Africa, where founder Jack Dorsey spent a month in 2019.

“Africa will define the future,” Dorsey said at the time, after visiting Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa.

The jobs advertised in Ghana include positions for engineering, marketing and communications specialists.

“Today, in line with our growth strategy, we’re excited to announce that we are now actively building a team in Ghana,” the company said in a statement.

Twitter said that its new team members would be working remotely under work-from-home policies while it explored “the opportunity to open an office in Ghana in the future.”

Ghana’s support for free speech and online freedoms made it the company’s choice for its first African location, Twitter said.

It added that the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) base in Ghanaian capital Accra had played into the decision.

“The choice of Ghana as HQ for Twitter’s Africa operations is EXCELLENT news,” Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo said on Twitter on Monday.

“This is the start of a beautiful partnership between Twitter and Ghana, which is critical for the development of Ghana’s hugely important tech sector.”

Facebook has several offices in Africa, including in Ghana’s neighbour Nigeria, where Mark Zuckerberg has been on a visit.

© 2021 AFP