Telecel Board fights over Vere's ouster

By Staff reporter | 04 Jun 2019 at 11:45hrs
Vere
There is a deepening rift at Telecel Zimbabwe after some board member(s ) requested that the current CEO Mrs Angeline Vere be fired for failing to turn around the fortunes of the company while continuously showed strong signs of insubordination to the board.

In a letter gleaned by TechnoMag, a recommendation was sent to the Telecel board to fire Angeline Vere for failing to turn around Telecel, and also continue making decisions without the board approval.

However, it seems this battle has taken a sharp twist with some board members heavily opposed to the move with daggers being set to be exchanged as the showdown continues.

Part of the issues raised in the letter read :

"There were some re-authorisations for our Annual Service Level Agreements (SLA) with our key vendors including ZTE, Huawei and Obopay for the Billing & IN systems, MFS and Radio Access Network(RAN) to the tune of close to $1M which required board approval but this was never shared with me for my review and input.

"This once again was unprocedural and a blatant violation of standing rules and procedures for authorizations for the company by the CEO who knew very well that any order or engagement above $100K required full board approval in accordance with the existing schedule of authorization the letter also added

Management was asked on two(2) occasions to circulate to the board the 2019 updated budget as per my recommendations in Dec, 2018 and this was agreed to by the CEO on December 21, 2018. To date, this request has not been honored or acted upon.

The letter also pointed out that Angeline Vere has failed to create a strategy around the Telecel mess

"also wish to point out that since the appointment of the CEO in September 2015, the company has been making losses every year with no solid recovery plan in place. Related to this matter, the board had repeatedly asked the leadership team for a Strategic turnaround Plan for the company in early 2018 "

The letter recommended that the CEO be relieved off duty a matter which the other board members are to respond to

Based on the above matters which demonstrate management's lack of capacity and ability to effectively run the company profitable (though I fully acknowledge the imperative for recapitalisation), violations of standing policy and procedures and insubordination, I hereby recommend the immediate TERMINATION of our current CEO.

The other directors, however, are strongly believed to have resisted this call and now are up in arms against the author of the letter.

TechnoMag gathered that the requested documents and authorisations ran by the CEO were in fact done by some board members, who did not care to update the other board members for reasons best known to themselves.

They have actually maintained that Angeline Vere has been doing everything above board and the decisions they passed did not always need a unanimous board decision, but theirs was suffice to effect and approve all the decision the CEO had made.

One board member who refused to be mentioned also added that the other board members who are not in Zimbabwe could not be called in to sit over meetings as Telecel does not have money to fly them in and is currently working on a tight budget to sponsor board flights and such logistics.

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