Telkom hung up on Zimbabwe in May

By Lance Guma
07 September 2005

The Public Relations manager for Zimbabwe’s telecommunications firm Telone has said Telkom of South Africa disconnected them from their network in May and not last week as reported. A furious Philip Chingwaru sent an angry e-mail to news organisations that covered the story saying it was old news and not worth covering. He boldly implied Telone did not need help from their South African counterparts and basically declared their service was second to none.

Instead of addressing the media on what the problem is and how they are going to solve it, Chingwaru seems to have taken an exception to the coverage of the story in the first place. How the disconnection was kept secret for over 4 months seems to be an even bigger story than the spokesman seems to appreciate. He tried to deflect attention from their problems by saying mobile phone networks in the country were providing an even poorer service compared to their fixed line network.

Zimbabweans trying to make phone calls to South Africa are running into problems because South African telecommunications provider Telkom disconnected Telone over an US$18 million debt. Business Day newspaper reported the dramatic developments last Friday saying the move had thrown Zimbabwe’s telecommunications into chaos. The disconnection over non-payment is affecting telephone traffic to and through South Africa.

Callers in south Africa can still phone Zimbabwe but those in Zimbabwe are now having to be re-routed through Canada to reach South Africa and hence the poor quality audio.