TelOne Zimbabwe cancels US$80 million of pending customer bills

Zimbabwean mobile network operator, TelOne has written off US$80 million of its customers’ bills in a one-off reduction being applied to their accounts.

The company, which is state-owned will apply a credit equivalent to US$257.82 to each customer account.

Some customers are said to have accrued substantial debts with the phone provider due to the currency crisis that hit the country some years ago.

TelOne said that the cancellation was in view of the "cash-flow challenges currently facing our clients across the market", and more likely reflecting the reality that it would not be able to recover the unpaid debts that had been built up in recent years.

The currency problems also affected the telecom networks, which struggled to buy infrastructure that was usually billed for in US dollars.