The revelation came to light over the weekend during the ICT Parliamentary portfolio's shared based station inspection nationwide tour.
The tour kick-started on 9 February 2020 in Kariba. The members also visited Maitengwe, Pumula before their last visit to Mashonaland East province, UMP.
Despite the heavy investment put, the visit gathered rather disappointing information that the shared Potraz base station has not been functional since September last year (5 months ago).
Member of Parliament for Maramba Pfungwe Hon Karumazondo confirmed to the ICT parliamentary portfolio that for sure since September last year the community has been largely disconnected and without any meaningful network coverage.
Technically the area has been disconnected from the rest of the world.
All was because Telecel Zimbabwe was unable to fuel their dedicated site that trunk the traffic out of the shared base station to their Rushinga downlink, rendering all other connected base stations useless.
In his submission to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, a Telecel engineer (name withheld) stated that they have been down for the past five months because they have not been allocated any fuel to their base station.
The most disturbing fact was that the Telecel site is their platinum base station which used to drive serious traffic and revenue in the constituency with the majority of subscribers in that area stating that they have been Telecel subscribers for years.
Telecel seemed to be the most subscribed Mobile Network in the area, but one wonders why they have completely neglected their responsibility and now losing potential revenue due to the serious downtime.
The challenge was not just on powering the Pfungwe base station, but also getting the signal to Rushinga and out to the next base station.
Telecel engineer stated that whilst at times they do have power and signal from the Potraz base station they maintain, the signs still die out as their downlink in Rushinga is often not reachable due to power issues as well, as it rarely runs on power.
ICT Parliamentary Portfolio Chairman Hon Chalton Hwende said that he was disappointed that Telecel was letting down the whole unit because they are failing to power and maintain the shared base station as mandated.
