The telecom operator secured the whopping US$50 million from the African Export Import Bank.
Econet chief executive officer, Douglas Mboweni, said that apart from the US$50 million, the country’s fastest growing mobile cellular company had raised US$200 million mobilized last year.
“Afreximbank has supported Zimbabwean industry through the country’s toughest times”, said Mboweni.
Among others, top on the priority projects to be implemented by Econet include the installation of base stations and the rolling out of a comprehensive package of data services based on 3G, General Packet Radio Service and Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution (Edge), which can support modern data services.
The Econet boss said the Afreximbank loan was part of the funding to take the network to five million subscribers by June this year.
“We are currently sitting on a core capacity of 5,1 million, but we need to install a lot of base stations between now and June to fully realize that capacity in terms of customers”, he said.
The funding would also be allocated towards the procurement of equipment needed for the full installation of a third generation (3G) network.
“I can confirm that we have paid for the full 3G network. We are installing the full system in all the major cities. The small system in Harare will be expanded and will be much faster after the expansion”, said Mboweni.
Econet Wireless has subscribers surpassing three million with more programs of action going on. The government owned NetOne is the country’s second largest, while Telecel is third.
by Mercy Mujuru
