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Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
TELONE’S digitalisation of the Gweru Exchange Centre and the rollout of its fibre network is moving at a snail’s pace due to failure by customers to settle their bills.The fixed telecommunications operator is owed about $200 million by both domestic and commercial customers.
TelOne seeks to migrate from analogue to digital convergence.
The company’s sales and marketing director, Joseph Machiva, told Midlands business community during a breakfast meeting in Gweru recently that unpaid debts by customers had resulted in the slow rollout of its fibre network as well as the sluggish implementation of the digitalisation of its telephone exchange centre.
“Our cash flow as a business is primarily post paying based which means people consume the services and then pay later. So it’s this state of affairs which has resulted in customers owing us about $200 million,” he said.
Machiva said the parastatal was still negotiating with its creditors to settle their bills.
He said the company had proposed payment plans to enable customers to settle their bills in instalments.
“This debt has crippled our own growth. We want to digitalise the entire network. It is no secret there is no funding in the country. Being a state owned enterprise we must then fund our own growth from our own activities,” he said.
“We must raise the money to digitalise those exchanges and this is a process. I think over the last year we made significant inroads towards that goal both from a digitalisation point of view and fibre network rollout. We are making good progress, it’s slow but it’s progress nonetheless.”
Appearing before a parliamentary portifolio committee on communication technology in 2012, TelOne chairman, Amos Mushaninga, said the parastatal requires at least $300 million to digitalise its operations.
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