BY FARAI MATIASHE
Small-scale miners in Mashonaland West province have gone rogue and destroyed $500 000 worth of TelOne network infrastructure, forcing subscribers to go for more than 10 hours without connectivity.
In a statement yesterday, TelOne spokesperson Hazel Ndebele said the damage by the small-scale miners affected more than 1 000 users in Makuti and Kariba area last Saturday.
“Small-scale miners are damaging the TelOne network infrastructure with the most recent damage being the cross border link in Kariba/Makuti area which was impaired over the weekend, affecting more than 1 200 clients at an estimated average cost of $500 000,” she said.
“The damage by the small-scale mining activities resulted in loss of services on September 21 from 10:26am. Services were restored the same day at 20:31pm. Restoration took longer than anticipated due to the rocky terrain in the area.”
Ndebele said the cross-border link carried data and voice traffic for the whole of Kariba and other countries up north who connect through Zambia.
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She said to avoid further damage, TelOne’s risk team was already raising awareness and educating the small-scale miners on the consequences of damaging the telecommunication infrastructure while route markings were being enhanced to clearly mark where there is underlying infrastructure.