Prominent Zimbabwean journalist, Hopewell Chin’ono, has said that Starlink refused to work with IMC , a company formed by the politically connected Wicknell Chivhayo, specifically to distribute Starlink services in Zimbabwe.
Posting on X, Chin’ono said Starlink refused to be a 50% partner in a local company that would distribute the internet service locally. The proposal was that IMC would get 40% and Zimbabwe’s sovereign fund, Mutapa, would have 10%.
Said Chin’ono:
There was a meeting this week in Harare involving DHL, a law firm representing Starlink, the secret service, the defence ministry, and ZIMRA regarding Starlink, according to my sources at Starlink.
Starlink was supposed to dispatch the first 1,500 test kits from America to Harare this week, but they were informed that POTRAZ needed to sign off first, which has now been done. POTRAZ will also inspect and verify the kits upon their arrival in Harare.
Starlink resisted a proposal for a 50% stake, with Wicknell Chivayo’s IMC receiving 40% and the controversial Mutapa Fund getting 10%.
My Starlink source told me this morning that they rejected the deal because the other parties were not bringing anything to the table except political capital.
Starlink has however managed to go live in Zimbabwe today. It’s not clear how the company is distributing its kits in Zimbabwe since the telecoms regulator, Potraz, is yet to announce Starlink’s licensing. When Techzim checked with Potraz a little over a week ago, the regulator maintained that Starlink had still not been licensed to operate in Zimbabwe.
Some days ago however, Frampol, a local ICT company announced that it had secured Authorised Reseller status with Starlink.
Chin’ono’s revelation about Starlink’s refusal to work with IMC largely agrees with information provided by Techzim sources on the matter in July. Around that time, we wrote:
From what we hear here at Techzim, Starlink don’t want anything to do with IMC. So no “finishing of signing” is about to happen. In fact, sources tell us the IMC is busy finding workarounds to this door that’s been shut in their face.
About IMC
IMC was unknown in Zimbabwe until the president, Emmerson Mnangagwa announced that it was the “sole and exclusive” Starlink partner in Zimbabwe. He also said he had approved the licensing of Starlink by Potraz.
The assumption, after the president made that announcement, was that IMC had already secured the Authorised Reseller status with Starlink. It turned out IMC didn’t even exist yet, Starlink didn’t want to work with IMC, and that POTRAZ itself had not approved any Starlink arrangement yet.
Potraz later announced that no company has the exclusive right to offer Starlink services in Zimbabwe, putting to rest the claim that IMC was “sole and exclusive local partner”.
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