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TelOne boss Engineer Lawrence Nkala had no kind words for copper cable vandals whom he said have prejudiced the Telecommunications over US$1 million in the past year only.
Engineer Nkala was responding to questions on the slide lines of the Anti-Corruption Pledge signing ceremony in the capital today.
Engineer Nkala said the telecommunications company which has for the past been swimming in legacy issues, has lost close to US$1 million in copper cable theft and other large sums of money as business loss.
“Last year only, we lost US$ 1 million in copper cables vandalism. In addition to that, we lost business, that is opportunities to make and this translates to US$300 000. That has been a very serious dent on our part,” said Engineer Nkala.
Engineer Nkala mentioned that recently, there have been cases of copper cables vandalism across the country and as an institution, their mind is very clear that they have to replace all the legacy infrastructure if they are to remain viable.
“Recently there were arrests in the Midlands in Kwekwe and Gweru, Bulawayo and Manicaland. So we continue to lose our infrastructure. The only solution to this is to replace this legacy infrastructure with fibre and wireless access, then we end the copper cables theft scourge,” he added.
Coaxed why TelOne was taking time to deal with the copper cable theft scourge, Engineer Nkala had this to say, “The biggest elephant in the room has been replacement capital to carry out these projects. We have been taking our time to look for partners to work with. However, we needed partners with competitive lending rates. As we speak, we are in the process and I can assure you a new TelOne shortly.”
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