Malawi phone service operators MTL, TNM in US$21 million debt

While phone consumers are still whining about poor services from the providers, they will have another shocker with revelations that two of the country’s phone service operators, Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL) and Telekom Networks  Malawi (TNM) are in huge foreign debt amounting to US$21 million (about K15.2 billion).

Press Corporations Limited Financial Manager, Elizabeth Mafeni has disclosed that the two companies owe foreign firms the money incurred throughprocurement and technical infrastructure maintenance costs.

“In terms of exchange losses, which is a major impact on our performance, we are expecting a drop, because we have so far localized two to three of foreign loan in MTL, it’s now in Malawi Kwacha”, Mafeni  explained during a briefing of shareholders and investors.

Mafeni said converting the debt into local currency was difficult due to continued fluctuation of Kwacha against major foreign currencies.

PCL has confirmed in the group’s 2015 financial report that mobile phone carriers, MTL and TNM, face an uphill task to service the debt.

Meanwhile, Press Corporation has registered a 17 percent drop in its annual profit for the year ended 31st December 2015. The conglomerate registered pretax profit of K25.5 billion unlike in 2014 when it recorded K34.2 billion in profits.

Press Corporation Limited is a public company incorporated in Malawi, under the Companies Act 1984.

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