By Brilliant Pongo Report Focus News | 21 June 2025

Imagine this. You walk into your local bakery on a Sunday and pay for seven loaves of bread — one for each day of the coming week. You plan to collect your fresh loaf daily, just as agreed. But come Tuesday, life happens. You’re stuck at work or maybe there’s a power cut and you can’t make it.

When you show up on Wednesday and ask for your missed loaf, the baker shrugs and says, “You didn’t collect it yesterday — it’s gone. You lose it.”

Outrageous, right? But that is exactly what’s happening across Zimbabwe — only it’s not bread, it’s your mobile data.

Last week, while in Zimbabwe, I bought a data bundle and — like many customers — didn’t use it right away. A few days later, I found it had expired. Not because I used it, but because time ran out. The data I paid for simply vanished.

This isn’t an isolated case. Every day, millions of Zimbabweans are subjected to the same quiet digital theft, courtesy of mobile service providers like Econet, NetOne, and Telecel.

Is This Legal? Or Just Legalised Exploitation?

Mobile data is not a perishable item. It doesn’t spoil in the sun. It doesn’t rot. Yet, providers enforce strict expiry policies— 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days — after which unused data is wiped out with no refund, no rollover, and no compensation.

From a legal standpoint, this raises urgent questions:

• Is it fair trade to sell a digital product and then revoke access without use?

• Does this violate consumer rights under Zimbabwe’s Consumer Protection Act (Chapter 14:44)?

• Where is the legal clause that allows a company to keep your money for a service you never received?

Legal experts argue this practice could be challenged in court as an unjust enrichment or a breach of implied contractual terms. If a consumer buys a quantity of data, they should reasonably expect to use it until it is depleted, not until a timer runs out.

Network Failures, Load Shedding, and No Grace

Let’s add insult to injury. Zimbabwe is plagued with load shedding, frequent power outages, and network disruptions. Just last week, Econet admitted on national radio that they were experiencing serious technical issues.

Did they pause the expiry clocks on data bundles?
Absolutely not.
Customers still lost data they couldn’t use because of network failure. Shouldn’t that alone be grounds for class action?

Where Are Our Legislators?

Where are the Members of Parliament?
Where are the consumer watchdogs, the Competition and Tariff Commission, and the Ministry of ICT?

Zimbabweans are crying out under the weight of an already overstretched economy — one where fuel, food, and basic services are skyrocketing. Now, even digital access, a lifeline in today’s economy, is being rationed unfairly.

If ever there was a time for Parliament to step up and demand consumer protection laws around digital products, it is now.

Data Is Not Bread. But Even Bread Doesn’t Expire This Fast.

If you buy two gigabytes of data, it should belong to you until it is used up. This “use it or lose it” model is not only outdated, it is exploitative.

There are no other goods on the open market that behave this way. You don’t buy petrol and find your tank half-empty the next morning because you didn’t drive. You don’t pay for airtime and find your voice minutes expired without a single call.

So why do we accept it with data?

Time for a Consumer Revolution

It’s time Zimbabweans speak up. Demand clarity. Demand accountability. Demand data ownership. A class action lawsuit, or at the very least, a public ombudsman intervention, should be the next step.

Call it what it is:
Data-Gate — theft by expiration.

 #StopDataExpiry
 #DataIsMineTillItsGone
 #DataGateZimbabwe
#DigitalRightsZW
 #ConsumerProtectionNow