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Potraz Earmarks U.S.$5 Million for Expansion in Zimbabwe
The Standard (Zimbabwe)
December 05, 2009

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/business/22455-potraz-earmarks-us5m-for-expansion.html

For the first time in more than 10 years, the Zimbawean regulator POTRAZ has unveiled a US$5 million from a pool of operators' contributions to be used for expansion programme. Operators have not been getting money from their contribution since the creation of the Universal Services Fund (USF) in 1998.

Under the fund operators contribute two percent of their gross revenue and the money is supposed to be channelled towards expansion in underdeveloped areas. To date some operators have already received approval on their plans for expansion from the Ministry of Information Communication Technologies.

Alfred Marisa, POTRAZ Acting Director General confirmed the availability of the money but said he would not comment on the amount made available saying it was "suffice to say that the available money is made up of amounts collected from licensed operators since the introduction of multi-currencies that is between February and October 2009".

Marisa could also not shed light on when the money was made available saying that when contributions were made to the Universal Services Fund, they become available to operators. "Delays in accessing the money were mainly due to absence of an implementation plan which could not be done before under-serviced areas were defined by the Minister in terms of the Act.

"The Authority consulted with operators as from May 2009 in identifying under-serviced areas and managed to get the required ministerial approval in early November 2009, declaring the identified areas as under-serviced," he said.

Marisa said as required by the law the money had to be disbursed in accordance with an implementation plan drawn up by the POTRAZ in consultation with licensed operators adding that consultations were at an advanced stage. "USF projects are mainly targeted at under-serviced, unviable, remote and rural areas of the country," he said.

ICT Minister Nelson Chamisa said the funds will target areas under-served or unserved "because it was either commercially unviable or too remote. We want to make sure that we connect the unconnected. ICTs constitute the last remaining bridge for the poor."

In his 2010 budget, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said ICTs had the potential to transform the way government operates and provides impetus for economic growth and development. He said such a transformation would be possible if government provided enabling policies that allow for investments in appropriate ICT infrastructure.

Biti allocated US$5 million through the Vote of Credit aimed at establishing a fibre optic link between Harare and Mutare and Harare to Beitbridge.

The POTRAZ "windfall" comes at a time operators are on massive expansion programmes to boost their subscriber bases. In such programmes, expansion is targeted at areas hitherto ignored in the past 10 years due to the country's economic conditions.

Econet, the country's largest mobile operator said on Thursday that it expects the subscriber base to hit three million mark by the end of the year and its network has a capacity of four million subscribers.

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