Johannesburg - Vodacom, South Africa's biggest mobile network, operator has not tabled a fresh offer for a controlling stake in Ghana Telecoms (GT) but couldn't rule out adding a sweetener to its initial $500m (R3.5bn) bid.

"I've read reports from Ghana to that effect [of a higher offer]," said Dot Field, head of group communications at Vodacom. "But the fact is that we have not tabled a fresh offer for GT."

She added, however, that Ghana remained a market in which the group was "firmly" interested... as indicated in our annual report".

Initial bids for a 51% stake in GT were rejected by transactional advisors who argued that they were way below the government's asking price. Bidders included Portugal Telecom and France Telecoms.

Vodacom's reluctance to pay a premium for attractive telecoms assets is largely the reason for the company's pedestrian expansion record - which pales that of rival pan-African operators MTN and Celtel.

Vodacom has networks in Lesotho, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania.