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Zimbabwe telecommunication operators have called out on government to fix key issues in the economy which has been making it difficult to do business due to numerous challenges including hyper inflation, power outages and foreign currency shortages.
Addressing stakeholders at a sector performance workshop in Kariba Telecontract Managing Director Mr Godfrey Jowa said structural weaknesses in the economy such a slow gross domestic product growth and high inflation has resulted in an unstable pricing model in the sector.
“Our problems from where I stand I structural, they are about our economy. That is why everybody gets to a point where they are unhappy, it’s the economy that’s not working. The growth is not there if it was, the operators would be connecting more people and having a lot more revenue coming in,” he said.
Mr Jowa also highlighted that high compulsory levies paid by the operators affect pricing.
“When we speak about taxation, about US$0.32 in a dollar of the sales we make goes to different types of taxes, whether it’s excise duty or VAT and this is before we take out cost of operating so that’s why you end up with operators investing US$0.05 from a dollar from turnover because the structure and the tax regime is not right. There is just little left to invest elsewhere,”
“So firstly lets create growth in the economy,a stable exchange rate and curb inflation,” he added.
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