FROM PILLAR TO POST

Mr Mohamed Shameel Aziz Joosub 08 June 2021 Chief Executive Officer: Vodacom South Africa Vodacom Corporate Park 082 Vodacom Boulevard Midrand 1685

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FROM PILLAR TO POST

As citizens we always assumed that bad service and bureaucratic mess up is only best dished by civil servants and thanks to Vodacom, I now know that this is a very wrong assumption, South Africa sucks when it comes to bad service.

It should not come as a surprise that customers are more negative towards telecommunication companies, than banks, insurers, and retailers. During my many interactions with your company, it struggled to maintain any meaningful customer relationship with me.

I fail to understand on how does a company like Vodacom takes my cellular number that has been in my name for almost two decades and give it to someone else? I have been struggling with this matter since 2020 after leaving my comfy job with the public sector wherein I received a monthly sponsorship on my bill. Rightly so and as expected, my previous employer requested Vodacom to STOP the sponsorship/split billing but instead, your company decided to remove my name and banking details on the number and put the details of my previous employer. In the attached letter (Annexure 1), my employer made her instruction clear that the number was never theirs in the first place.

For the past couple of months, you have been debiting the wrong banking account, due to the bungling and incompetence of your employees. Justifiably so the debits are always reversed by the account holder who is currently not enjoying the rights to the phone and number since I have those in my position, as the rightful owner.

Your claim of “connecting for a better future” is really misplaced if your staff cannot execute such a simple task of restoring my name as the rightful owner of the cellular number in question. Yes, I might not have best credit record but that does not mean you have the right to take away my number.

To me this points to unnecessary bureaucracy, ineffective leadership, and failure to adhere to an outcomes-based approach as espoused in the King IV Report on Corporate Governance because now I am told I must apply for my own number, something I have been using for two decades. During this period, I have built valuable business relationships that are crucial for my new business ventures and my number is key to maintaining them.

This is beyond any bureaucratic red tape I have ever experienced even by government standards. Your urgent intervention as an accounting officer is needed as I have exhausted all channels of communication with your staff.

Mr Sibusiso Nkosi Managing Director