Kabimba wants Mutati to chase Airtel out of Zambia, or compel it to improve services within 90 days
FORMER Minister of Justice Wynter Kabimba has written to the Ministry of Science and Technology, calling for urgent government intervention over what he describes as “prolonged and unacceptable” poor network services provided by Airtel Zambia.
In a letter dated October 14, 2025, and officially received by the ministry on October 15, Kabimba urged Minister of Science and Technology Felix Mutati to act decisively, accusing the mobile service provider of taking advantage of weak regulatory systems while raking in huge profits from Zambian subscribers.
“For more than a year now, we the Airtel subscribers have been experiencing poor and intermittent network service from the largest of the mobile providers in the country,” Kabimba stated. He noted that while many initially attributed the disruptions to load shedding, it had become evident that this was not the main or sole cause.
Kabimba, who is also a senior lawyer, argues that Airtel has failed to live up to its initial promise of providing quality ICT services to Zambians.
He says the company appears to be taking customers’ silence for complacency, despite what he termed as “colossal profits” accumulated over the years.
He further accused the Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority -ZICTA of lacking the capacity to hold Airtel accountable, attributing this weakness to government policies that prioritize investor interests over service delivery.
“In view of this, I wish to suggest that Airtel should be given a timeline of not more than 90 days within which to improve its services, in default of which the company should leave the country to save the Zambians from its extortionist business culture,” Kabimba states.
Kabimba has copied the said letter to Airtel Zambia’s General Manager.
The Ministry of Science and Technology has not yet issued an official response to Kabimba’s concerns.
©️ TV Yatu October 16, 2025.
How’s Airtel supposed to mitigate against loadshedding? Running gensets is costly and cannot be done on a routine basis. It is supposed to kick in as an emergency measure.
In all fairness, Airtel is not fully responsible for the poor service. Any break in the relay towers due to loadshedding can lead to poor service. Until loadshedding eases, a lot of companies have to limp along.
Same.goes for MTN.
Maybe a worthy alternative is Starlink?
And be at the mercy of another extorionist Elon Musk? Seriously?
Airtel wants to bring the caste system into our culture. Ever dealt with staff that are untouchable? Rude and entilted. The Manager at Airtel HQ goes for lunch at 14hrs and makes customers wait until she feels like. Telling off customers on her return.
The staff assisting her are equally incompentent acting like they do you a favour when its their role to attend to you.
Whatever happened to the staff we had in the 1990. Cream of the crop? Zamtel call center collude to cover each other up. MTN has a non existent call center.
How do you customers get help when they have to deal with “glamour driven”, opinionated, entilted waanabe staff that dont listen to staff? When this starts at the front desk. The back office doesnt get to hear what the public needs. If the front line staff behave like this. What more the back office? Where their executives? Gloating about their brands like they are “hollywood” celebrities? All our cell phone providers need a top down clean up.
Your 90 day theory has still not gone…have you tried Zamtel? So we should kick them out also. Stop this silly mentality of yours..
No chasing.Just continue increasing penalties untill they comply or run on their own
No chasing but ask for improvement of service.And we must be mindful that energy matters contribute alot to these challenges of poor services.Airtel employs many young people of our country and we can’t offload these young people on the streets, it will be a crisis.President Hakainde Hichilema spends sleepless nights looking at the plight of youths and tries to make sure they are employed by bringing investors in the country.
Ba Muleta what rock do you live under where every wrong must be tolerated and given an excuse.
What power are you talking about? Have not noticed that you are paying more for bundles from last year and even when asked to reduce. Its done for a few weeks and then half the increase? Is that increase not enough to cover their genset running costs? When fuel decreases do their tariffs reduce? Stop making excuses for imcompent people. Alway placating on issues? Lets be sincere on issues. HH wont come looking for people who just “yes men”. Truth matters to him no matter how bad it is.