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| toubab1020 |
Posted - 29 May 2019 : 18:30:20
"Read Foroyaa tomorrow for detail report on the financial statement and related reports for both institutions (Gamcel and Gamtel) for the year under review 2017." MAYBE 
RELATED :https://www.gambia.dk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16402
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By Momodou Jarju
The Gambia’s GSM Operator has raised a red flag calling for a bail out on its current serious and precarious situation or risk stopping operation.
The General Manager of Gamcel, Elizabeth Johnson, made the clarion call yesterday at the National Assembly Public Enterprises Committee (PEC) while presenting their activity report and financial statement for the year 2017 together with its sister institution, Gamtel.
She said Gamcel is already limited in its network coverage and any additional loss of coverage could necessitate a halt in its operation as a service provider.
“Gamcel needs a bail out to continue to serve as a service provider. It needs a bail out through capital injection from government or help to secure concessionary financing to quickly upgrade and stabilize its infrastructure. I believe Gamcel has great potential as a national service provider that needs to be harnessed,” she added.
She further said Gamcel continues to be at a cross-road and needs urgent intervention on the serious challenges it is grappling with.
Operating in a very stiff competitive and dynamic industry where technology trend is constantly changing to meet the needs of the people, the company’s manager said for the company to continue as a service provider, it needs capital investment to expand and modernize its infrastructure to effectively operate in the market.
Ms. Johnson said the company has serious financial constraints and therefore she is unable to expand her network coverage from internally generated revenue alone.
“The billing system has adverse limitations and continues to limit the company’s ability to maximize revenue generation as it can only provide basic voice services. The dynamics of the industry has gone beyond voice services,” she said.
She noted that the company has and continues to suffer high staff attrition rate due to unattractive remuneration compared to the private sector, saying it would be impossible to achieve anything with poor and dilapidated infrastructure, an obsolete network and unstable billing system in place.
The lack of a robust billing system that can provide proper billing and value added services, she went on, has caused a loss of customers to the competition and the company’s network coverage is partially located around the country with a considerable part of the network being 2G.
“The network is currently at a stage where if any of the sides goes down it cannot be restored and all customers in the affected sides will be without communication services. A breakdown will not only cause a significant loss of revenue but a national blackout for communication for that specific region,” she noted.
Johnson said in 2017 they engaged in operational and preventive maintenance of its infrastructure as well as managing activities to promote and address customer needs to sell its products and services.
She said a network replacement project was started in 2016 and completed in June 2017 to replace the obsolete base stations with new stations and also replace old equipment that have lived their useful lives and did not add any coverage to upgrade the network.
Ms. Johnson said in 2017, Gamcel experienced a complete shutdown for its billing system which was at the time managed by MGI the International Voice Gateway Cable. She said the problem started when government terminated the contract with MGI that was managing the Gateway, as a result it affected Gamcel’s billing system as well.
“In order to make sure our customers enjoy interrupted communication services to retain them, management offered free on net calls, Gamcel to Gamcel, during this period. This situation resulted in a massive loss of revenue to the company. Prior to the problem, Gamcel was making daily sales averaging 1.5 million dalasis. But the period of the shutdown, the sales drop below five hundred thousand dalasis (D500, 000) and the trend is still the same today,” she said.
In a bid to restore the situation, the management resorted to reactivate its previous billing platform which was decommissioned due to its adverse limitations.
This billing system platform was able to normalize the situation to start charging for services and generate revenue, according to Johnson. Unfortunately, the temporal solution is still in place two years down today, she added.
“Gamcel is currently operating a network infrastructure with only second and third generation network elements while all its competitors have rolled out third and fourth generations countrywide,” she said.
Meanwhile, the session was adjourned till a later date for possible consideration and review to be communicated to both institutions. Both institutions have also made an undertaking to try and submit their activity reports and financial statements for the year 2018 in late July 2019.
Read Foroyaa tomorrow for detail report on the financial statement and related reports for both institutions (Gamcel and Gamtel) for the year under review 2017.
http://foroyaa.gm/gamcel-calls-for-bail-out-or-risk-halting-operation/ |
| 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| toubab1020 |
Posted - 28 Jun 2019 : 22:12:25
“Gamcel needs a bail out to continue to serve as a service provider. It needs a bail out through capital injection from government or help to secure concessionary financing to quickly upgrade and stabilize its infrastructure. I believe Gamcel has great potential as a national service provider that needs to be harnessed,” she added.
Ah Ha......... Here comes the Knight in shining armour to save the "national carrier" from disaster in the form of Huawei.
This shows the speed in which development happens if both sides are in a position to gain something each THe Chinese are never slow to ACT and make things happen in a very short time without protracted political posturing as is so ofter the case with western and African politics.
"....Ebrima Sillah, the minister of information and communications infrastructure who thanked the joint implementation team for a job well executed and on budget."
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June 27, 2019
Thousands of homes, offices and enterprises can now get connected to the fastest and most reliable internet highway as The Gambia yesterday signed the national ICT strategic agreement with Chinese global tech giant Huawei at a twinned event which also included the formal launching of the national broadband network project, NBP.
The ceremony was presided over by vice president Dr Isatou Touray and attended by the Chinese Ambassador to the Gambia and the West African regional director of Huawei.
The vice president, who represented President Barrow expressed deep gratitude to the Chinese government and president Xi Jinping for their support to the Gambia.
She said China has been committed to supporting the New Gambia in many respects and the national broadband is one of the most important cooperation projects.
“The project not only extends the country’s 400 km optical fiber but also plays an important role in the national development plan.
It has succeeded in making the last mile of the original national optical network so that households and enterprises can easily access the internet at a lower price and enjoy digital services,” she said.
Mr Seedy Jaiteh, MD of Gamtel expressed appreciation to the guests and introduced the NBP as the first concessional loan project between The Gambia and China at the tune of 26 million dollars.
The project will be delivered by the Gamtel and Huawei team within 18 months closely watched by both presidents Barrow and Xi Jinping.
“Gamtel will now launch the G- Fiber series products base on the project to provide gigabit fiber services for home (FTTH) and enterprises, the FTTB. This indicates that Gambia entered the digital era”, MD Jaiteh said.
The Huawei CEO for West Africa said what started as a fruitful discussion two years ago has now materialised into The Gambia national broadband network project, a national information highway.
“This project not only connects schools, homes, banks and industries but also creates more employment,” he said.
Other speakers included Ebrima Sillah, the minister of information and communications infrastructure who thanked the joint implementation team for a job well executed and on budget.
https://standard.gm/national-broadband-network-project-launched/
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| toubab1020 |
Posted - 31 May 2019 : 11:35:59
By Momodou Jarju May 30, 2019
The Gambia’s two telecommunications companies have raised concerns over the decline in their financial performance for the year ended 2017.
Officials of Gamcel and Gamtel disclosed that appropriate measures ought to be taken to put both institutions into a sound and sustainable financial footing.
The General Manager of Gamcel, Elizabeth Johnson, has already indicated that the national cellular company needs a bail out or else, risks halting its operations.
Mr. Shola Mahoney, chairman of the board of directors of Gamcel/ Gamtel, said both companies’ financial performances in terms of internal growth as well as profit declined.
Mahoney said Gamcel’s situation is more precarious because it does not enjoy any form of monopoly but subjected to the competitive pressure of the private sector.
“It’s important for us to point out, there is need for us to point out at this stage, Government with the assistance from world bank has already conducted a number of consultancies into the repositioning and restructuring of Gamtel and Gamcel so that we can take a decision on how to make the two companies more efficient and viable,” he however said.
The officials made these statements at the National Assembly on Tuesday while presenting their activity reports and financial statements before the Public Enterprise Committee (PEC).
GAMTEL’s Financial Performance
Gamtel, whch continues to be the highest employer in the telecommunication sector with a total employee base of 1,156 according to PURA as of 2018, financial performances decreased significantly in 2017, reporting a total of revenue of D685 million compared to D939 million in 2016, a decrease of 27%.
The main reason for the reduction in revenue was attributed to non-accounting of the revenue earned from the international gateway, a revenue stream which was taken over by the Government in 2013.
The officials said the gateway is managed by Gamtel but the revenues earned are controlled by the Government.
“The total cost of sales for 2017 was D275 million compared to D474 million in 2016, representing a 42% decrease or D200 million due primarily to the non-accounting of the international gateway out-payments. The gross profit for the year decreased by 12% from D465 million in 2016 to D410 million in 2017 culminating to a net profit after tax of D29 million compared to D63 million in 2016,” Gamtel stated.
GAMCEL’s Financial Performance
Gamcel’s turnover in 2017 was D387 million compared to D407 million in the previous year, showing a drop of D20 million or 4.9%. Officials of the national cellular company said the reduction in revenue was mainly due to constraints in network, challenges posed by the political impasse, a month shutdown of the billing system and the fierce competition in the market.
“Cost of sales for the year was D193 million compared to D256 million in 2016, a decline of D63 million representing 24.6%. The decline in cost of sales was as a result of significant drop in interconnection costs between Gamcel and other operators. The gross profit reported in 2017 was D194 million with a margin of 50% compared to gross profit of D151 million and a margin of 37% in the previous year,” Gamcel officials said.
http://foroyaa.gm/gamtel-gamcel-raise-concerns-over-decline-in-financial-performance/ |
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