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Minister Supa Mandiwanzira

Leonard Ncube in Victoria Falls
INFORMATION, Communication and Technology, Postal and Courier Services Minister Supa Mandiwanzira is expected to make a determination that will settle disputes surrounding voice call and data charges.

Recently, there was a data price fiasco when the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) announced floor prices for voice and data for bundled services including promotional packages. This saw the cost of mobile data going up by about 2 500 percent, drawing outrage from mobile phone users.

Econet Wireless was the only mobile phone operator which complied with the Potraz directive, with details later emerging that the directive had been instigated by the mobile phone operators.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) Engineer Samuel Kundishora told Business Chronicle on the sidelines of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Regional Economic and Financial Forum in Victoria Falls last week that the issue has to be resolved to finality.

“The debacle has to be resolved. It’s a balancing act as the whole idea is to protect both the operator and user,” said Eng Kundishora.

He said Minister Mandiwanzira was seized with the issue and would soon call a press conference where he will announce Government’s position.

The matter almost turned political as Econet accused the Minister of siding with other operators.

“There will be a statement soon, remember the minister is back. There has been negotiations between operators themselves as they were discussing on how to remain viable and we are waiting for the minister to make a determination at a press conference to be called soon,” said Eng Kundishora.

The Government suspended tariff hikes bringing temporary relief to users who felt affected, but there still remains concern over confusion surrounding the introduction of new policies that are imposed without full consultations.

A few weeks ago Econet Wireless reversed its data tariffs hike after it emerged that it was the only mobile operator in the country to have complied with the Potraz floor prices that set data bundles at a minimum of $0.02 per megabyte.

The regulator had told mobile operators to set the floor price for traditional voice services at $0.12 per minute, while the floor price for data was set at $0.02 per megabyte.

Econet Wireless advertised that according to the new tariffs, the cheapest data bundles (5MB on a standard connection, plus another 5MB available on WiFi), would have cost $0.50, while $1 would buy 10MB plus the bonus 10MB on WiFi. The highest amount of data bundles one would get (2.5GB plus, 2.5GB bonus on WiFi) would have cost $50. The cheapest data bundles had been set at $0.50 and would come with 10MB of data plus a 10MB bonus.

Subscribers used to pay $2.50 for a month’s access of data bundles, which would have only purchased 80MB plus an extra 80MB on WiFi, according to Econet’s new tariff regime.

— @ncubeleon