Following the directive by POTRAZ to set the floor price for all data bundles, promotional or otherwise, to 2c/mb, there has been a lot of backlash from members of the public. The new floor price resulted in Econet Zimbabwe removing it’s promotional bundles and offering new packages which most members of the public feel are too expensive. Business people have also come out expressing their concern over the move by POTRAZ citing that it would make business a lot harder to conduct as most of their customers access adverts and communication from the said businesses online. Expensive data prices would then mean the customers have difficulty in accessing the internet and hence businesses will suffer. In a tweet earlier this morning, businessman Dr Shingi Muyezwa expressed his thoughts on how the data prices would make business more difficult by saying,
We are now back to using telexes, postmen, etc. We then have the audacity to talk about improving ease of doing business. #BackToTheStoneAge pic.twitter.com/c1FAoGmrJt
— Shingi Munyeza (@ShingiMunyeza) January 12, 2017
Zimbabwe Online Content Creators has also come out to reprimand POTRAZ on the data hike. The voluntary organisation, representing proffesional content creators, made a press statement which can be found here : The Zimbabwe Online Content Creators ZOCC