Econet says it is owed USD85 million by NetOne and TelOne

According to local press reports, Econet Wireless is fighting to recover approximately USD85 million worth of interconnection fees from fellow cellcos NetOne and TelOne. Econet CEO Douglas Mboweni told the a parliamentary committee that the company may be forced to cut off its state-owned rivals if they fail to pay. ‘One of the biggest challenges we have is that we continue to see non-remittance of interconnection fees by our colleagues in the industry,’ Mboweni said. The executive also revealed that most of the company’s base stations run on generators due to electricity supply problems. ‘72% of our base stations would be running on generators at any given time to keep the network reasonably operational. We have to ensure that the base stations are up and running or else there would be very bad connectivity,’ he said.