By Our Reporters
The High Court has extended the mandate of Twebaze Bemanya as the Administrator of Uganda Telecom (UTL). This means that Bemanya, who has been spearheading efforts to revamp UTL since 22nd May 2017, will continue being in charge at Telephone House up to November 2018. In this administration period, a lot has been accomplished including hiring Price water house coopers to work with the administration team auditors to verify the original claim of Shs709bn creditors had originally tabled against UTL. Verification, on which Bemanya insisted even at the risk of being misunderstood, has seen the debt reduce from Shs709bn to Shs536bn. This means that Shs173bn that would have gone in ghost claims has been saved. The administrator also contracted Bageine & Company Ltd to conduct valuation of all the UTL assets whose value at the time the administration period commenced was estimated to stand at Shs148bn. This reduction of liabilities, through the verificational auditing exercise, has enhanced the value of the company’s value as regards to its worth and thereby increasing its competitiveness to attract investors. This partly explains why a total of 17 serious investors had originally expressed interest to invest in UTL. Through verification and due diligence, being undertaken by the administration team aided by the Finance Intelligence Authority, the list has since reduced to 7 investors or companies from which the most suitable will in the end be chosen. In the due diligence, the FIA teams are looking out for the investors’ commercial, technical and legal suitability to invest in UTL where government intends to maintain significant shareholding. Late last year when the initial administration period of 6 months was supposed to expire, the grateful creditors met and voted to retain Bemanya for another 6 months, something the High Court later on ratified. In the latest case, it’s the court that saw it prudent to extend the period for another 6 months and the reasons for this are threefold. The final six months running from 22nd May to 22nd November 2018, Bemanya the official administrator will be accomplishing three major tasks namely: finalize the strategic investor identification process, settle all the creditors’ claims and ensure a smooth transition or hand over from the administration team to the new management of a fully revamped UTL.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
The reforms he has ushered in and the patriotism with which he has acted have enabled Bemanya to register many achievements including forcing the reduction of the cost of internet for government from $300/megabyte per second as of June 2017 to the mere $70 that is currently charged. In his latest report to the creditors, Bemanya pledges to bring it to $50 by the end of FY2018/19 and subsequently to $25 in the FY2019/20. He writes: “The same will be extended to the private sector. The ultimate objective of these interventions is to make Uganda competitive in the region and attract investments.” He says his administration team has been able to end all this excessive cheating of government on internet connection by leveraging on the 9.13% (worth $22m & $1.4m dividends coming in annually) UTL has in the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC). Yet that isn’t all. UTL has also taken initiative and reached out to telecom market leader MTN Uganda for negotiations that have resulted into the slashing of interconnection fees from Shs112 per minute to just Shs25 per minute. Consequently the expense incurred by a UTL subscriber making a call to an MTN line has dropped from Shs300 to Shs120 per minute. “The administrator hopes to do the same with all other telecom operators to reduce the cost of communication in the country,” Bemanya pledges in his latest report to his bosses the creditors. He says efficiency has also increased in the way the company is run as seen in its monthly revenue growing from Shs4.28bn to Shs4.5bn which represents a growth of 5%. Having curtailed unnecessary expenditures, the monthly wage bill has reduced from Shs2bn as of April 2017 to just Shs1.09bn. This was achieved by getting rid of the top management officials who were earning obscene amounts of money in salaries at the time the company was collapsing. Because of the routine repairs, ability to pay interconnection fees on time and having in place a well-motivated workforce, the UTL network availability has improved from 75% as of April 2017 to the current 97%. Service providers, interconnection partners and staff as well as utilities are all paid on time-and all these have been achieved without the company ever getting any financial injection from anywhere. Endless efforts to engage government have resulted into almost all MDAs complying with the Presidential directive by getting their internet needs served or supplied by UTL. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
