Universal Services Fund delays riles operators

Universal Services Fund delays riles operators
Published: 04 July 2014
The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe should use the Universal Services Fund to develop ICT knowledge in under-serviced areas and circumvent the delays in putting up passive infrastructure under the fund.

The USF is a pool of money into which the country's licensed telecommunications companies contribute to finance the expansion of telecoms services in outlying areas, which are under serviced.

Although the fund was essentially designed to channel investment in ICT infrastructure, it was also put in place to assist in training of personnel in the provision of postal and telecommunication services.

The fund has however not been fully utilised despite companies having contributed close to $43 million to it since its inception in 2011.

Telecel managing director Angeline Vere said the funds had been lying idle for too long and should be put to use.

"We are worried about the delays in the utilisation of the USF. We feel it could be useful to develop other areas such as putting up incubators and ICT centres for the benefit of communities that are still not serviced," she said.

She said Telecel had already acquired active infrastructure to set up on passive infrastructure that Potraz was supposed to install under the fund.

The regulator was supposed to put up 43 base stations by end of last year to add to the 11 already installed but the project hit a snag. Potraz cited delays in getting State Procurement Board approvals for projects, the requirement and need to consult operators on disbursements of funds, consulting affected stakeholders and Government, site acquisition for construction of rural passive telecoms infrastructure as other challenges affecting projects, apart from lack of funding.

Potraz acting director general Alfred Marisa recently said the problem of inadequate funding worsened after operators negotiated to review downwards their contribution to the USF from 2 percent to 0,5 percent of a mobile network operator's revenue.

Telecoms companies have however questioned the way the fund has been disbursed.

Econet Wireless chief executive Doug Mboweni in May said although they were the biggest contributor to the fund, they had not seen any meaningful deployment of the funds to benefit the targeted communities.

The set back has affected the roll out of towers as well as other projects including schools under the $12 million "connect a school connect a community" project, e-Government projects worth $7 million and connectivity to rural post offices at a cost of $3 million.
- BH24
Tags: Potraz,

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