Zambia cancels licence of Vodafone franchise holder citing poor capacity

Zambia’s communications regulator said on Thursday it had cancelled the licence for Vodafone’s local franchise holder, citing a lack of technical and financial capacity.

Vodafone in 2016 licenced Afrimax, a telecommunications service provider in sub-Saharan Africa to offer customers high speed 4G data services using the Vodafone Zambia brand.

The company, registered as Mobile Broadband Ltd has lately been experiencing operational problems and issued a statement in July saying its shareholders had failed to recapitalise it.

Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority said in a statement Vodafone Zambia would cease to operate from Oct. 20.

“The Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority has cancelled network and service licences issued to Mobile Broadband Limited trading as Vodafone Zambia Limited,” it said in a statement.

“The cancellation is on the grounds that Mobile Broadband Limited has ceased to fulfil the eligibility requirements … by not being technically and financially capable of meeting the obligations and terms and conditions of the licence.”

No one at the company was immediately available to comment.