Econet claims to be owed USD26m by state telcos

Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, the country’s mobile market leader in terms of subscribers, says it is owed USD26 million in interconnect fees by the state-run telcos NetOne and TelOne. A report from ITWeb Africa quotes Econet’s chairman James Myers as saying: ‘A disturbing trend has emerged over the last five years in which NetOne and TelOne have been increasingly unable or unwilling to settle their debts.’ The company says it has ‘full confidence that the government of Zimbabwe will resolve these open issues in the interest of the Zimbabwean people – in a fair and transparent manner’. Econet reported last week that it had seen a 41% drop in net profit in its fiscal year to end-February 2015 to USD70 million, largely as a result of a recent move by the regulator to cut tariffs by up to 30%, plus taxation on airtime top-ups and handset imports. Econet said it had 9.2 million registered customers at the end of February, up from 8.8 million a year before.