Cecilia Nyamutswa, the acting Director General of POTRAZ
A few days ago, a report published by Zimbabwe’s Auditor General revealed that the Ministry of ICT had received a $10 million loan from the national telecoms regulator POTRAZ.
The funds were then used, together with a $30 million contribution from NSSA to acquire a 60% stake in local telecoms operator Telecel. According to the Auditor General, the loans were acquired without approval from the national Treasury.
POTRAZ has, however, denied having any knowledge of any loan agreement relating to Telecel.
Responding to questions on how the regulator’s financing of the acquisition of a telecoms operator affects POTRAZ’s mandate to create a “level playing field”, the regulator’s Acting Director General, Mrs. Cecilia Nyamutswa said,
We have no record of having funded the purchase of any operator and no agreement with anyone to such effect. We have no knowledge of how the Government uses the money that it has once the money is in Government hands.
Regarding the Auditor General’s report which shared the information on the transactions she said,
We have not seen the audit report yet as our audit has not been finalised. Our records do not have any loan agreement relating to Telecel . We only saw the newspaper reports.
Nyamutswa also pointed out that POTRAZ doesn’t do anything that is not authorized by the relevant authorities and the relevant law and that any payments made to Government depend on the authorization received from Government and governed by what POTRAZ can do in terms of the POTRAZ Act.
As the regulator of Zimbabwe’s telecoms industry, POTRAZ’s direct involvement in the ownership of an operator would create a case of conflict. Its interest in one service provider could affect the impartiality of decisions made regarding competition.
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13 comments
A result of creative accounting perhaps. POTRAZ busy destabilizing the sector. Vamwe havabhadhari malicence. They even get loans.
Of course they don’t know anything about a loan, you’ll have to be very stupid to think that Potraz will just come out and say “Yea, we gave the Minister of IT a loan to buy a stake in Telecel”… they’re a regulator remember??
They are busy deleting all the vital infor trail.
Here is my proposal, every gvt organ must have a central backup system which is accessible by auditors, police and relevant anti-corruption departments. The system where data is kept will be in read-only mode(most if not all banks in western countries do this).
You will have one copy on spinning disk, and another on magnetic tape which will stored somewhere(under CI0 building maybe 😉 ) as a worm(write once read many). The whole archive system can be encrypted and files released only under court order. This will prevent people from tampering with information and can be used to formulate future gvt policies.
Through TelOne, Africom and PowerTel, the archive system is very easy to setup and run, its a huge project but it can be done one gvt department at a time. To help my country, l can oversee the project for free and have it open to public for scrutining (we have to do something as citizens otherwise at this rate there will be no country left soon)
Yes Macd, make it happen please. Every gvt organ needs this including every local authority in this country. You have your work cut for you. And seeing as you have vonluntereed yourself i am too offer myself to be used as a tool for this endervour.
l have built such infrastructure for companies with 30 times bigger budget of Zim, companies which generate terabytes of data per hour( AUVs monitoring undersea pipes)
But Mwanamwana, l do not see it happening. A while ago l offered same services for the passport office, to digitise everything and make it truly a paperless. I offered all free consulting and direct the whole project free(as long as gvt buy all required equipment), but l got a respond which made me think someone wanted his her hands oiled.
I got the idea after l tried to get a passport and l was sent everywhere filling what l thought was unneccessary paperwork
records are stored on paper
Its even easier to digitise paper records prior to transfering them into the archiver system…
She can try to cover up for Minister. She must know she is not a politician and Auditor General cant frame stories lol. The car is there and $10m is not in the Potraz Account.
When did she become Potraz Acting DG? What happened to the one who was acting last month?
say that EasyTech.. ndiye achamama
They rotate the acting so as to loot.That one Cecilia is a devil.
Well there is the issue of the Universal Service Fund which PROTRAZ oversees, they do not want to look bad by showing that they garnished the accounts and used it irresponsibly….
Does it mean Econet bought Telecel indirectly since they are the ones paying for the licence,thinking out loud..educate me
Amai tangai mashaver hapwa mozotaura zvenyika