NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, October 27, 2014

GOVERNMENT-OWNED mobile phone operator NetOne generated a paltry US$1 194 in revenue from its mobile money transfer platform OneWallet for the year-ending December 31 2012 after investing close to a quarter of a million dollars in the product.

This translates to a mere 0,005% return on investment for the country’s oldest mobile operator, according to an audit report on state enterprises and parastatals prepared by Auditor and Comptroller-General Mildred Chiri.

“Revenue of US$1 194 was earned from the One Wallet product for the year ended 2012. The cost of implementing this product was US$225 867 and the return on investment thereof was 0,005% in 2012.

“An analysis of the product performance revealed that the One Wallet product did not have the facility to transfer funds across other networks and customers had to swap their old sim cards with new ones in order to access the new product,” Chiri wrote in the report.

She recommended that the mobile operator increases the “catchment of the One Wallet product to other dealers and enable the transferability of funds across other networks”, warning that failure to do so would lead to the complete loss of funds initially invested in the product.