KTH plans to cut costs

By HELEN TARAWA
KUMUL Telikom Holdings (KTH) plans to cut costs and increase revenue to support the 2020 budget through dividend, says interim group managing director Dr Mosey Sau.
He was responding to issues raised by the PNG Communication Workers Union to support its planned industrial action.
Sau said the 2019 supplementary budget passed by Parliament last Friday meant all state-owned entities should step up, with KTH ready to implement government decisions.
The union resolved last week to stage a national stop-work protest if the Government failed to meet its demands including the:

• Termination of the current KTH board and the appointment of a new one;
• return of the 4G LTE mobile business to Telikom PNG and to dissolve bmobile and have it become a subsidiary; and,
• Reinstatement of five sacked Telikom PNG employees.

The union accused the current board of, through a Cabinet decision to merge the three Teleco companies, splitting the asset base of Telikom.
The union also claimed that through alleged fraud, it distributed carelessly to bmobile and Dataco in 2017 and 2018 its other business units, rendering Telikom unable to raise the internal revenue it once enjoyed.
Sau explained that it was the prerogative of Cabinet to appoint a new board.
“We’ve gone through a lot of hurdles since the National Executive Council decided that we should have this restructure of the communication companies owned by the government. We have had to deal with a lot of legacy, financial and political issues,” he said.
Sau said the KTH board wanted cooperation between the union, the board and management. “It is critical that our business vision and objectives are translated in that cooperation to a better outcome that we can all push and drive this company forward.
“For the union, they should be fighting for their members’ rights rather than the greater political issues,” he said.