TelOne recovers $40 million but still owed $264 million

State-owned telecoms operator, TelOne, says it has recovered $40 million from debtors in the first four months of the year.

“We have recovered around $40 million. But it’s not nearly enough considering that we are being owed more than $200 million by various debtors. So efforts are continuing,” TelOne managing director, Chipo Mtasa said during the company’s projects tour in Umzingwane and Gwanda districts yestrday.

The parastatal is still owed more than $264 million by various players across the economy, including the government, Mutasa added.

She said the parastatal had decentralised debt collection efforts to come closer to their exchanges.

“We are decentralising our debt collection efforts to come closer to our exchanges where we can be closer to the customers. We are also busy with the mordenisation project to put up prepaid facilities so that we can then link some of the owed bills to a prepaid service,” she said.

She said every employee in TelOne was now participating in the debt collection initiatives, increasing its capacity and impact.

Corporates and small-to-medium enterprises owe the company about $92 million, households $83 million, the government $41 million, parastatals $36 million and local authorities $10.6 million.

The State-owned telecommunications firm owes $129 million to various suppliers.- The Source

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