[times of swaziland] A bulk of the recent profits amounting to E39.9 million declared by Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC) came from dividends paid by Swazi MTN.
This was after a loss of close to E1 million that was made from operating activities. "Investment in the promotion of the ‘ONE’ brand in preparation for the commercialisation of the fixed wireless products resulted in an increase in marketing and branding costs," reads the corporation’s latest financial statement.
The statement covers the period up to March 31, 2010. Phanuel Vilakati, Acting Chairman of the SPTC Board, said the position of SPTC remains uncertain due to political interference in business operations of the company.
According to Vilakati, the corporation received a political directive to stop the ‘ONE’ fixed mobile project. This is because Parliament is yet to issue a directive that would give a green-light to the project. This follows a parliamentary probe into Nelsiwe Shongwe the Minister of Information and Communication Technology’s conduct relating to issues of the parastatal.
The probe cleared the minister of any wrongdoing but a report declaring this was turned back by Parliament and no date has been set for its return to the august House.
According to a financial statement published by the company recently, a loss of E942 000 was incurred by the corporation. This was after the company had spent E239 million and E261 million on operating expenses and cost of sales, respectively, against an accrued revenue of E488 million.
The profits that were declared came from dividends from the company’s shareholding at Swazi MTN from which E32 .8 million was paid to SPTC.
The rest came from an interest fee that was paid to the company for money that is in banks and other investment portfolios that are holding cash on behalf of SPTC.
David Dlamini, Chairman of the Swazi MTN board of directors declined to comment on the decline in MTN dividends. "Swazi MTN is a private company and its accounts and related operations are not public," he said briefly.
The corporation’s declared profits decreased by 62 per cent from those declared in 2009. The corporation also revealed that operating expenses increased by nine per cent from 2009.
It further explained that the increase was also caused by provisions relating to underfunding of the company’s Pension Fund. SPTC made a provision of over E17 million for this fund. As of March 31, the company had close to E75 million in cash and there were people and companies who were being owed over E62 million. The corporation also had over E65 million current liabilities. These are short term debtors that need to be paid.
From among these, SPTC should pay over E55 million to companies that are trading or doing business with it.
SPTC’s total expenditure for the year totalled over E173 million, the bulk of which was on telecommunications equipment as part of the NGN (next generation network) project roll-out.
SPTC gets cash mostly from MTN
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