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Zimbabwe’s Econet 'owed $85mn'

Zimbabwe’s Econet 'owed $85mn'
By Tawanda Karombo, Journalist
19 Jul 2012

Zimbabwe’s Econet Wireless has revealed that it is owed $85 million in unpaid interconnection fees by government-controlled rival operators, NetOne and TelOne.

Telecommunications companies in Zimbabwe are obliged to pay fees for traffic that terminates on another operator’s network.

Under this arrangement, when an operator collects 24 cents for a cross network call per minute, it has to pass on about 7 cents to the other operator terminating operator.

“One of the biggest challenges we have and l must say that it is a very worrying challenge, is that we continue to see non-remittance of interconnection fees by our colleagues in the industry,” Econet chief executive officer, Douglas Mboweni told a Zimbabwean parliamentary portfolio committee on yesterday.

He said that the money the telco is owed by its rival operators was “now in excess of $85 million” and added that Econet was being taxed for this amount by the government.

“This is revenue that we are taxed upon as Econet.

“Yet, it is revenue that is uncollected. I am just mentioning this so that you see the kind of pressure this kind of situation puts on us,” he added.

Mboweni said rival operators were “collecting the money and keeping the money to themselves”.

Although officials from NetOne and TelOne were not immediately available to comment, sources in the sector said if the situation remained unaddressed, Econet could be forced to cut off connectivity with its state run rival operators.

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