Telecom Namibia (TN) expects a loss of between N$6,3 and N$8,6 million a month due to the deregistration of close to 200 000 SIM cards after the 31 March deadline.
TN chief executive Stanley Shanapinda told Desert Radio on Thursday morning these are the figures they are most concerned about as they monitor the reactivation process.
He highlighted the huge numbers of people that have been standing outside of teleshops over the past couple of days.
Shanapinda said as a result, TN have opted to extend their operating hours once again, as well as get extra personnel, which includes a higher intake of interns.
“We had to call back a few people to come and assist our customers. We also had to increase our intake for students […] We had to extend office hours and that’s another overtime cost,” he said.
Shanapinda said the 191 000 SIM cards deregistered is a disappointing number considering the efforts they put into campaigning.
“It’s not satisfactory. We already started two years ago to make the process as simple as possible. We were hoping to be at 90% but we do understand the logistical circumstances for our customers.
“We tried to send our teams out as far as possible. We could not go all over the country, we would have needed more time and resources.”
Shanapinda said TN partnered with post offices in areas where they did not have a presence, to enable customers to register their SIM cards.
He further told Desert Radio they will be monitoring how many people reactivate their SIM cards during April.
“We will keep up our efforts for the month of April at least and see how the number is coming down. We will evaluate and if we are not satisfied, we will double up on our efforts,” he said.
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