Safaricom had another record year in 2004. Turnover (sales) increased from 19 billion to 27 billion, resulting in after tax profits of 5.9 billion up from 3.5 billion in 2003.
Long term debt reduced from 9.5 to 6.8 billion and on news reports, MD Michael Joseph was quoted as saying that Safaricom’s debt agreements don’t allow it to pay any dividends until the debt is fully paid.
However in the directors’ comments, you can almost hear the company crying out to the government “how much blood (tax) do you need from us?” Safaricom paid almost 10 billion (9.69 billion in duties, taxes and licence fees) last year and over 30 billion since the company was launched with taxes accounting for 26% of airtime cost for phone users.
2 comments:
That is why we need the 11% that vodafone wants to buy sold to kenyans instead. We buy the airtime - I think we should get a shot at buying the shares.
It will get cloudier before it gets clearer at Safaricom
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