Econet is celebrated in Zimbabwe as one of THE brands that have made a permanent presence in people’s everyday life, every businessman’s dream no doubt. But the service we are getting is only serving to give that Strive guy a very bad name as  many know him as the face of Econet from the days when the now VP Joice Mujuru was one of many opposing the late VP Joshua “Father Zimbabwe” Nkomo to give the young man [Strive] an operating license.

Ever since subscribers rushed to buy those simcards after Econet hit the nation with broadband excitement and then the demand to register the lines by POTRAZ, there has been a lot of furious anger aimed at Econet and with good reason. I bought a line a few months ago, had it registered as demanded based on the threat that failure to do so I would be switched off on the 31st of March 2011. But what do you know, despite having registered the “line,” the morning of April 1 found me without any form of communication as I had been switched off. Thinking this was an April Fools gag, I made my way to the Econet offices only to find hordes of fuming subscribers who all had the same story to tell: they had been switched off despite having registered their lines as duly demanded. And the arrogant people that Strive employs have not been very helpful, you just have to ask if that man knows this is what Zimbabweans who have given his wealth are going through.

Zimbabwe being a land of conspiracy theories, whispers galore that this is no inadvertent glitch: some dark forces have interfered with people’s only communication tool through these mass disconnections which are causing mass hysteria as every Nhamo, Themba and Sihle is now on Facebook thanks to Econet broadband. And the dark forces, only being too aware of what social media has wrecked in the Maghreb, well, one cannot be too careful!

The haughty types at Econet told us on Friday 1 April 2011 we would be reconnected by the end of the day, and we were not. Monday 4 April 2011 we were again told we would be connected by the end of the day, we were not. Are these people taking our peace loving nature for granted, someone in the crowd wondered aloud? I am not sure whether this was directed at Econet or the dark forces! Elsewhere there would be a mass public campaign to boycott Econet the company Strive built.

This entry was posted on April 5th, 2011 at 11:25 am by Marko Phiri and is filed under Activism, Media, Reflections, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.