Government officials working in the public procurement department have been accused of selling off confidential projects data from the state owned mobile network operator NetOne to rival operators prejudicing the parastatal of market leadership and dominance which comes with innovation, 263Chat can reveal.
Former NetOne Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Reward Kangai made the revelations during an interview with 263Chat last week where he said the second largest mobile network operator was losing out due to recklessness by state procurement board officials who leak confidential data to competitors.
“Some of the government officials who work in the public procurement offices are linked to private mobile network operators. By commission in those offices, they are expected to make favorable decisions beneficial to NetOne but contrarily they were selling information to private players” said Kangai.
“Talking about sellouts in the government’s public procurement offices, l will tell you a number of instances where NetOne will come up with special project but because we have to go through the State Procurement Board, our critical data fell into the wrong hands and it ended up in the hands of our competitors,” he added.
Kangai further noted that since private operators do not need to go through bureaucratic tendering process like NetOne, they are always quick to mobilize resources and launch most of NetOne’s planned projects.
Acting NetOne Chief Executive Officer, Nkosinathi Ncube could not be reached for comment on the matter and other Executives referred all questions to the Ministry of Information Communication Technology and Courier Services.
ICT Minister, Kazembe Kazembe was not available to comment as his mobile phone went unanswered at the time of publishing.
Like any other state owned entity, NetOne is required to provide applications for approval of its special projects to the now Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ), the bureaucratic process that private players now manipulate to their advantage.
