STATE-OWNED telecommunications company, TelOne will introduce prepaid services for its voice product to increase revenue collection and cut on debtors.
BY TARISAI MANDIZHA
TelOne is owed $150 million as individuals and companies failed to pay for services rendered. Managing director Chipo Mtasa said TelOne was pursuing a variety of strategies to recover the money. Of that debt government, corporates and households owe 30% apiece with the balance (10%) owed by smaller State enterprises.
“We also have debtors to the tune of $150 million whom we are pursuing through various strategies. Our collections from this exercise are intended to self-fund some of the network modernisation projects that we have lined up. These projects are also key to the value-added services that we are introducing as a company,” Mtasa said.
She said debt collection was a continuous process and due to the current economic challenges, the company was working towards installing more prepaid services for its voice services as a measure to increase revenue collection.
In 2013 the company wrote off $80 million in debts after government ordered State institutions and local authorities to write off debts accrued by residents from February 2009 to the end of June 2013.
Mtasa said TelOne’s balance sheet continues to be weighed down by historical legacy loans which were inherited after the unbundling of Postal and Telecommunications Corporation.
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“We continue to look for support . . . for government debt warehousing as an option to create opportunities for the company to access fresh capital at reasonable rates by presenting an attractive balance sheet to the financial markets,” Mtasa said.
Commenting on the projects, she said TelOne had successfully managed to harness fibre capacity by bringing connectivity to homes in a number of towns and cities around Zimbabwe.
Mtasa said since the unveiling of the Fibre to the Home, TelOne had completed deployments in Zimre Park, Mainway Meadows, Mt Pleasant Heights, Westgate Area D, Tynwald North, Knowe (Norton), Turf Village in Ngezi and Mimosa Park in Zvishavane among many others.
Mtasa said TelOne had installed 106 Wi-Fi hot spots points around the country and would add 100 more before the end of the year.
TelOne recorded an operating profit of $1,6 million in the six months to June 30, 2015 despite a fall in revenue.
In its interim results, revenue was down 9% to $69 173 674 from $76 111 056 in the same period last year.
Cost of sales were $37 265 003 from $42 074 161. Administrative expenses were down to $32 602 918 from $33 326 407 last year.
According to the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe’s first quarter report, traffic volumes and revenues earned on voice telephony was declining while Internet and data services were on an upward trend.
Potraz said the decline in voice could be attributed to increased usage of IP-based applications such as WhatsApp and Viber.
