Mawindi challenges Telecel Board's suspension

By Staff reporter | 11 Jun 2019 at 08:43hrs
Mawindi
Former Telecel Zimbabwe CEO, Mr Francis Mawindi, who was now a board member of the same organisation has scoffed at the letter of suspension that the board served him recently.

Speaking to TechnoMag over his reaction to the suspension, Mawindi said the board was misguided to make such a decision and their reasons were baseless, hence it is null and void.

The Minister of ICT, Postal and Courier Services Hon Kazembe Kazembe who is the major shareholder and controlling power to the board's decision had his reservations over the matter, insisting that he would not comment over the issue as he was working on announcing a new board.

Mawindi, however, stated his appointment to the board can only be rescinded by the appointing authority, which in this case is Telecel International, the majority shareholder represented by the government.

It's important to note that I was appointed to the board of directors of Telecel Zimbabwe by the principal and majority shareholder of the company, Telecel International and not by the chairman of the company and as such the purported resolution of the board is null and void.

There are supposed to be a minimum of 3 board directors from TI and 2 from EC as per the existing shareholders agreement and since the resignation of Barbara Rwodzi from the Board late last year (who represented TI) there has not been a replacement and so to date the board is still not fully represented"

The Ex CEO also said the resolution was passed on wrong assumptions, and he never committed the offence they alleged he did, but rather this is a smokescreen;

The resolution that has been passed is false and therefore null and void due to the fact that I never communicated with the press on any matters concerning the company and never in any way, shape or form misrepresented confidential company information. I believe that the chairman seized an opportunity to cover up the shenanigans happening in the company and I'm sure the truth will soon come out

Telecel has not been performing well financially in the past 5 years mainly because the shareholder has exercised so much energy in intra-company fights, neglecting their mandate to capitalize the wagon which is key to turn around, while competing with players who have seriously invested in strong capex.

Management has also been blamed for failing to come out with turn around strategies to remain profitable, amidst serious subscriber base bleeding and very low Average Revenue Per User being realized.

Telecel Zimbabwe is seriously facing challenges of mandatory obligations, with its licence fee issue coming back to haunt them as they have failed to commit to their payment plan with the regulator breathing heavily on them to regularize.

The real battle that Telecel has is over the 40% ownership which Telecel Zimbabwe has, through the Economic Consortium, where we are likely to see a repeat of the Vimplecom move where government swallows over the asset due to non-payment of licence fees.

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