UTL Debt Stands At Shs 700 Mil­lion – Report

A se­lect com­mit­tee in­sti­tuted by Par­lia­ment to in­ves­ti­gate the fi­nan­cial woes at Uganda Tele­com Limited (UTL) has re­vealed that the com­pa­ny’s debt cur­rently stands at Ugx 700 bil­lion.

The com­mit­tee chair­per­son, Phillip Okin Ojara, who is also Chua West MP, told jour­nal­ists at a press con­fer­ence at Par­lia­ment on Feb­ru­ary 7, 2017, that the in­ves­ti­ga­tions place the to­tal in­debt­ed­ness of UTL amounts to Ugx 700 bil­lion.

Ojara said that the money was ac­crued from debts to lo­cal and for­eign com­pa­nies, which pro­vided services to the com­pany, while oth­ers in­cluded ar­rears from statu­tory de­duc­tions.

“When you look at the debt port­fo­lio, in­clud­ing loans and li­a­bil­ity of UTL, it goes up to the tune of Ugx 700 bil­lion and this is enor­mous. This is se­ri­ous be­cause you re­ally won­der how a com­pany can get out of this sit­u­a­tion,” Ojara re­vealed to the me­dia.

Ojara out­lined that UTL is chok­ing on debts from Uganda Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion (UCC), Uganda Rev­enue Au­thor­ity (Ugx 58 bil­lion), MTN Uganda and Air­tel Uganda, among oth­ers.

“We are not very cer­tain whether the ca­pac­ity of the com­pany will be re­vi­tal­ized so that they come out of this sit­u­a­tion,” Ojara noted.

It should be noted that gov­ern­ment owns 31% shares in UTL, with the ma­jor­ity share­hold­ers; Libya African Port­fo­lio (LAP) Green owns 69% shares.

The com­mit­tee said that UTL may re­quire re­cap­i­tal­iza­tion for it to be re­vamped and back on its feet. Ojara said this can be done if gov­ern­ment and its ma­jor­ity share­hold­ers in­ject more re­sources into the com­pany.

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