MTN suffers $4.8 million battery thefts in 2014

Telecommunications giant, MTN, lost more than $4.8 million in battery thefts between January and December last year.

The batteries were peculiar ones imported as backups for MTN cell sites because of the frequent power interruptions.

Addressing an Editors’ Forum at Elmina in the Central Region, Mrs Cynthia Lumor, Corporate Services Executive, indicated that those batteries were special and imported to ensure quality services for its customers but they were stolen from the cell sites.

“What we had to do is to put in some measures again to minimise battery thefts,” she said, and called for help from all stakeholders to help minimise the thefts.

She also said the number of subscribers increased and revenue also increased by 13.4 per cent.

Taxes paid

Mrs Lumor revealed that the company paid GH¢605 million as taxes to the government out of the revenue of GH¢1.9 billion it earned in 2014.

She explained that it meant that for every one cedi recharge card sold, 34.5 pesewas went to government through withholding taxes, corporate income tax, national stabilisation levy, Value Added Tax (VAT) and other taxes paid to revenue agencies.

She also said another challenge that the company faced was that its fibre lines were often tampered with or cut when roads were being constructed or small-scale miners were prospecting for minerals.

She indicated that the situation had compelled the company to invest more money in their operational areas instead of entering new territories.

Mrs Lumor added that the company also spent more than GH¢9.4m on fuel and GH¢15.8 million on electricity in 2014, as against what it had budgeted for the year due to the frequent disruptions in electricity supply.

Job Creation

According to Mrs Lumor, the company and its stakeholders created jobs for 500,000.

She said the MTN Ghana Foundation had spent more than GH¢19 million impacting more than three million lives, providing schools, libraries, hospitals and other amenities for the people in the company’s catchment areas.

She said the company would spend more than $100 million on the improvement of infrastructure this year and continue to replicate best practices across the country to ensure that customers benefitted from its quality services.

The Regional Senior Manager for the South West Business District, Mr Simon Amo, stated that MTN would continue to improve services in the Central and Western regions.