Ghana’s leading telecom service provider, MTN Ghana has reported paying a total of GHS3.7 billion in direct and indirect taxes to government in the year 2022. This is GHS600 million more than what it paid the previous year.
It comprised of corporate taxes, Value Added Tax (VAT) levies and duties, withholding taxes, communication service tax, national fiscal stabilization levy, Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and payments to other government agencies.
MTN also paid an additional GHS301.7 million in fees, levies and other payments to governmental agencies, bringing the combined total payments to the government and state agencies to 40.1% of MTN’s total revenue for the period.
The taxes and other payments were made out of a total revenue of GHS9.9 billion, also an impressive GHS2.2 billion (28.3%) more than the GHS7.7 billion it recorded in 2021.
Profit before tax stood at stood at GHS4.1 billion, while profit after tax was GHS2.85 billion, indicating a 42.7% increase year-on-year.
The telco therefore did the needful by proposing to pay out dividends of GHS0.124 per share, which is a marked improvement from the GHS0.085 per share it paid out in the year before.
Per its 2022 end of year financial report, its EBITDA (Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization increased by 30.9% over that of 2021 to GHS5.6 billion, with EBITDA margin increasing 1.1 percentage points to 56.1%.
But this impressive performance did not come cheap – it came at a price some GHS2.1 billion in capital expenditure (capex) over the one year period. Within that same period, MTN also allocated as much as GHS28.3 million to corporate social investment, which is almost twice that of 2021 (GHS14.3 million).
The investment into the network drove the number of mobile subscribers up by 12.8% to 28.6 million, while active data subscribers also increased by 8.3% to 13.5 million, and active Mobile Money (MoMo) users shot up by 15.0% to 12.7 million.
Challenging Year
Even thought MTN posted an impressive results, it reports that 2022 was particularly a challenging year for Ghana’s economy, compounded by high levels of inflation and the sharp depreciation of the Ghanaian cedi against key currencies.
The average monthly inflation rate during the year 2022 was 31.5% and rose for twelve months in a row to reach 54.1% in the month of December 2022, compared to 12.6% for December 2021.
Looking Ahead
In terms of the outlook on the future, the company said it will continue to execute on its Ambition 2025 strategy and maintain its investment commitment to drive continued growth.
“We will deepen our expense efficiency efforts and preserve liquidity as we navigate macroeconomic challenges. We give a medium-term guidance for service revenue growth in the low-twenties – in percentage terms,” it said.
Meanwhile, this year alone, apart from its commitment made to sponsor needy but brilliant students under its Bright Scholarship Reloaded, MTN also cut sod recently to construct a US$25 million Ghana ICT Hub in fulfilment of its 25th anniversary promise to Ghanaians.
The hub, which is being located at the Accra Digital Centre, is expected to train more than 200,000 young people, generate over 100,000 jobs and provide meeting places for more than 100 tech companies and start-ups, which will incubate new ideas to boost the start-up buzz in the country.
