The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has claimed that the privatisation of teecoms parastatals is being delayed by the absence of advisory fees.
Zimbabwe was scheduled to sell majority shares in state-owned telecoms assets but absence of about US$5 million to pay Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), an advisor on privatisation is reportedly stalling the process. The treasury said:
NetOne and TelOne have indicated that they cannot afford the over US$5m transactional fees for the consultancy services for the transaction. Following the unsustainable fees for the transaction, Government has cancelled the transactional contract with PwC Transactional Advisors and is looking at retendering or sourcing for the services of other bi-lateral or multilateral partners,” Treasury says in an update on the privatisation plan.
In this regard, a formal request has been made by the Secretary of SEPs Reforms, Corporate Governance and Procurement to the World Ban local office to ask IFC to as Transactional Advisors since these do not need upfront payment of fixed fees as their fees are success fee based.
This comes amid reports that most of the country’s parastatals are being poorly managed resulting in unnecessary loss.
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