Telecel Workers Plead With Minister To Save Their Jobs

Back in 2011 Telecel Zimbabwe was the country second biggest mobile network by subscriber base, with an all-time high of 2.4 million subscribers, with a market share of around 30%. Around 2012-2014, Telecel Zimbabwe was at its best peak when it re-branded from an old tired blue logo to a vibrant red and white.

Ever since some ex-minister threatened to shut down the company, forcing the owners Vimplecom to sell their stake. Telecel Zimbabwe has not been the same. In fact, Telecel Zimbabwe is not work.

Documents seen by Techunzipped show that Telecel is dyeing a slow death  after it’s servers went down and the company has failed to replace the broken down spares.

“The daily operations have been severely affected by the dysfunctional IT systems. Subscribers are failing to recharge airtime due to a combination of both system failure and loss of critical staff,” reads the document.

Telecel’s clients are no longer able to replace or change sim cards due this dysfunctional IT system which has drastically reduced active users to 800 000 from the previous 2.2 million.

“Active subscribers have gone down from 2.2 million in 2014 to around 800 000 in December 2019.”

“The accounting software (SUN) has been down posing a high risk of fraud and theft outright dysfunction of the whole business,” the document states.

In some provinces like Masvingo, Telecel has been false to offer services.

Telecel has 4G in main cities alone, anywhere else it has 3g and still expected to be competitive. Telecel is lagging behind on network coverage with 656 2G sites, 408 3G sites and 17 LTE sites compared to Econet with 2501 2G, 1545 3G, and 647 LTE sites and NetOne: 1681 2g, 824 3G and 291 LTE.

Below is the letter which was served to the Ministry of ICT: