Harare — ECONET Wireless Zimbabwe would need at least US$2,5 million to acquire a modern billing system for its 50,000 Business Partna subscribers who were migrated to the prepaid platform last week after the old system started collapsing.

Douglas Mboweni, the Econet chief executive officer (CEO), said the country's biggest mobile cellular operator has a tough task raising the US$2,5 million needed to upgrade the billing system because of the foreign currency shortages being experienced countrywide.

Mboweni however, said Econet had other activities, more critical to the survival of the network, that also require urgent attention and investment.

This means any new funding raised would not be deployed immediately into the acquisition of the new billing system given that Business Partna customers can be serviced on the pre-paid platform.

"We are throwing every resource to the heart of the network -- the switch," he said.

"We are dealing with an era of crisis. The work that we have done at the heart of the network is significant. What we have done here is a way of averting disaster, it is part of a journey but we have hit a hard patch.

"Any software has a lifespan of four to five years . . . So here is a system outdoing its lifespan, which needs US$2,5 million to replace and is really cracking. We only had two options. That is why we decided to put them to a reliable platform carrying Buddie and Libertie subscribers," Mbo-weni said.

He said an Indian company that supplied the old billing system, installed at the launch of the network 10 years ago, has said it would not be able to provide any spares to keep the outdated equipment running and the solution would be to purchase a new one.

The Business Partna subscribers make up five percent of Econet's subscriber base while the prepaid Buddie and Libertie customers constitute the bulk of the subscriptions.

The Econet CEO said criticism has been mounting from the high net-worth subscribers, who were not used to purchasing scratch cards, ever since Econet switched them to the prepaid system.

Mboweni said Econet had not been spared by the economic challenges the country is grappling with.

Zimbabwe is currently going through its worst depression in decades with acute foreign currency shortages, nine digit inflation figures and the shortages of power and spares weighing down business.

Because of the impact of the economic ruin on the business, Econet's entire $20 billion pre-tax profit for the half year ending August 31 2008 was generated through non-telecoms investments because at less than United States one cent tariff levels per minute, against the regional average of US$0,30 cents per minute, it is unviable to operate the network.

Econet has had to move into other non-core telecommunications activities to remain operational.

Asked if the group could consider divesting from the non-core investments if the economy stabilised, Mboweni said: "These investments are simply to hedge us against inflation. It will be wise to offload and invest in the network."