Dear Editor,
Please keep my name withheld for fear of harassment.
I would like to bring to the attention to the Zambian people the fact that things are getting worse at Zamtel since Mupanga Mwanakatwe was appointed Managing Director and he put in place an incompetent management team.
Without any commercial contract or agreement or any discussion with ZNBC, Mupanga Mwanakatwe ordered Zamtel engineers and technicians to lay hundreds of kilometers of optic fibre cable to all the venues for the ZONE six games. This was unplanned for and not budgeted for capital expenditure. He further more spent billions of Kwachas on purchasing the equipment including codex equipment to use for the transmission and broadcast of live feed of the games by ZNBC. A total of more than three billion Kwacha was spent on this project. This money was not budgeted for and there was no any form of commercial agreement with ZNBC. He also claimed that Zamtel was going to have exclusive branding rights for the ZONE six games.
After spending all this money, it come out that actually ZNBC was given ZMK6 billion by government and they have smartly used this money to improve their infrastructure and they have also contracted another South African company to help with the production, transmission and broadcast of ZONE six games.
It has also come out that actually Airtel and MTN have branding rights and nothing for Zamtel.
The question is, why did Mupanga Mwanakatwe spend Billions on a project without a business case and without a Commercial agreement with ZNBC? Who approved this unplanned and unbudgeted for capital expenditure? Why is the Board, the Minister and the PS silent? This man’s incompetence is beyond anyone’s imaginations. We have always said that Mupanga is not Chief Executive material, Mupanga is a failure and Mupanga is incompetent and he is proving us right without any reasonable doubt and beyond imagination.
All these unprofessional decisions are being made at a time when we have lost our market share, our revenue has dropped by more than 60% and our revenue generating active customers have dropped from over a million during LAP Green to less than450,000 customers under Mupanga Mwanakatwe’s leadership.
When Zambia won the AFCON, the same Mupanga, in his desperate attempt to impress his master Sata and to create an impression that he is working, he rushed to spend billions of Kwachas to purchase a Maccopolo bus for the Chipolopolo without consulting FAZ and without any commercial contract whatsoever.
When the bus was delivered, it was branded Chipolopolo and Zamtel. FAZ rejected the bus because they (FAZ) already had an exclusive contract with MTN and MTN had all the branding rights. This was unbudgeted for and unplanned expenditure. No action was taken by the board or the Permanent secretory.
We Know President Sata makes many mistakes but one of his worst mistakes was to appointed Mupanga Mwanakatwe as Chief Executive of Zamtel. This man has a proven track record of failure. Mr President, please don’t get over excited with titles of Dr so and so and you give them jobs and yet they have a track record of failure. Please think beyond politics and tribal lines and sort out issues at Zamtel. We need a Chief executive who knows what he is doing and we need a competent management team. I rest my case