Airtel Uganda announced on Monday this week that their customers will not be able to make or receive calls to Uganda Telecom (utl) starting tomorrow (Friday), and that decision was reached after the latter’s failure to clear a Shs8 billion debt, Matooke Republic has learnt.
A public notice issued in The New Vision newspaper on Monday stated: “Airtel Uganda regrets to inform its customers that effective Friday 3rd February, 2017, our subscribers will not be able to make calls to or receive calls from Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL).”
The statement added this was because the interconnection agreement and the interconnection services between Airtel Uganda and utl were terminated. When we reached out to Airtel, company publicist Ms Fiona Bugonzi said, “Uganda Telecom owes Airtel over Shs8 billion arising from unpaid interconnect fees and leased line services offered to Uganda Telecom by Airtel.”
Interconnect fees are charges telecom networks levy on each other for calls that their subscribers make among themselves. “As a result of the continuous default on payment of the amounts which cover a period since 2013, the interconnect agreement was terminated effective October 1, 2015.”
A source at Airtel who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the press told this newspaper, Airtel was getting apprehensive about utl’s capacity to pay up considering its widely publicised financial troubles, noting, “because of their [utl’s] liquidity troubles it’s not something they can do much about”.
“It’s not prudent anymore to keep accumulating debt [and] making payment plan after payment plan.”
utl reassures subscribers
Uganda Telecom in a statement by its board chairman Mr Stephen Kaboyo moved swiftly to reassure its customers said, “every effort was being made to ensure no interruption in connectivity and that the company remained committed to meeting its service obligations to its customers and business partners.”
Indeed Airtel’s Bugonzi said “Airtel Uganda is still open to discussions with utl”, and, industry regulator Uganda Communications Commission, our source revealed, was pushing Airtel to allow subscribers to continue to call landlines at least.
Troubles between Airtel and utl are nothing new, as Airtel previously disabled calls to the latter, still over debt, in 2011. The Libyan government is a majority shareholder in utl with a 69% stake, while the Uganda government owns the other 31%.