Zimbabwe has cancelled the operating licence of one of its three cellphone firms for having a majority foreign shareholding in breach of local laws, the state telecommunications agency said on Friday.
“In terms of the conditions of this licence, the foreign ownership of the company should be limited to not more than 49%,” said the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) in a statement.
Sixty percent of Telecel Zimbabwe’s shares are in the hands of a foreign company, Telecel International, while a group of local companies and individual investors under the name of Empowerment Corporation controls 40%.
Potraz said Telecel was granted an operating licence in 1997 and allowed to operate with a majority foreign shareholding “on condition that the ownership structure would be regularised within a period of five years from the commercial date of the licence”.
The regulator had given Telecel, the smallest of Zimbabwe’s three cellphone service providers, a June 30 ultimatum to change its shareholding ratio.
“Potraz would like to bring to the attention of the public that the licence … issued to Telecel Zimbabwe Private Limited was cancelled on August 9 2007,” the authority said.
Zimbabwe’s Parliament is expected to discuss later in the year a Bill to give local firms a majority stake in all public-listed companies.
President Robert Mugabe’s government also wants to change the country’s mining laws to give 51% shares in all foreign-owned mines to the state. — AFP