The management of Gambia Telecommunications Company (Gamtel) has said that the company’s gross profit dropped by 12 per cent in 2017.

The company made this declaration on Tuesday during the presentation of its financial and operational activities report for the year 2017 before the National Assembly Public Enterprises Committee.

Seedy Jaiteh, acting managing director of Gamtel, told the Committee members that the financial performance of the company decreased significantly in 2017 from D465 million in 2016 to D410 million in 2017.

Mr Jaiteh said that the company’s net profit after tax was D29 million in 2017 compared to D63 million in 2016.

He pointed out that the drop in revenue was mainly attributed to the non-accounting of the revenues from the country’s international gateway traffic from D187 million in 2016 to D46 million under the year review.
The company reported total revenue of D685 million compared to D939 million in 2017 a decrease of 27%.

He added that the international gateway is the company’s major source of revenue accounting for over 50% of turnover.

Mr. Jaiteh disclosed that in 2017, the government terminated the contract of Multimedia Gateway International (MGI) which controlled the country’s sole international voice gateway and appointed Gamtel to manage the gateway.

“The revenues generated are still controlled by the state and Gamtel cannot have access to it when the need arises,” he said.

He said that the flagship national company have experienced setbacks due to political interferences in the management, creating instability in its management and prioritisation of its resources.

He said the company’s other challenges were lack of adequate financial and operational resources as well as staff turnover. He said these problems have affected the company’s ability to expand and modernise its network.

“Gamtel would need massive investment to expand and modernise its infrastructure through government bailout, concessionary loans with minimum interest rates or collaborating with strategic partners that would provide finance,” said Mr Jaiteh

He also catalogued the series of external forces that stalled Gamtel’s profit growth in 2017 ranging from high competitions in a very volatile environment, economic factors due to limited purchasing power of ordinary Gambians, the country’s market structure and size.

Seedy Jaiteh replaced the suspended managing director, Sulayman Suso, who is under investigation.