South African parastatal signal distributor Sentech has issued a statement
announcing the results of its performance for the financial year 2012/2013.
The statement reads: At the beginning of the financial year, the company presented
a corporate plan designed to accelerate interventions in the communication sector in
general, and the broadcasting/media space in particular. These interventions are
founded on the strategic framework formulated in the 2011/2014 corporate plan,
placing an emphasis on the pursuit of a public service mandate for affordable
universal access to communication services.
A specific service delivery target for the 2012/2013 financial year was to achieve
80% population coverage of the digital terrestrial television (DTT) network. The
company exceeded this target, and recorded 80.4% population coverage four days
before the end of the financial year. Moving forward, the company is confident that
the entire network migration programme will be completed by the end of March 2014.
Sentech delivered global signal contribution and distribution services to CAF for the
AFCON 2013 tournament from each of the tournament venues. These services were
delivered with 100% availability throughout the event and, according to the AFCON
2013 Local Organising Committee (LOC), almost a billion people globally were able to
watch the games.
As a statement of commitment to clean administration and corporate governance,
Sentech received a clean audit for the 2012/2013 financial year by independent
external auditors. In this respect, the opinion on the company’s financials were
unmodified, the company was certified as a going concern and there were no
material findings on pre-determined objectives, compliance with laws and regulations
and the status of internal controls. The company notes that this clean audit is a first
for the company in well over 10 years.
It has also been a financially solid performance year for the company with the
following as notable achievements:
• Revenue from continuing operations (excluding dual illumination) increased by
7% from R776m to R831m.
• Operating profit from continuing operations increased by 20% to R177m.
• Cash generation improved with cash generated from operations increasing from
R277m to R299m.
• R457m was spent on additions to property plant and equipment in 2013 for DTT
and other projects.
During the period Sentech also cleared a number of legacy issues, with some dating
back to 1997. These included:
• Final clarity from National Treasury on the treatment of interest earned on
government grant funds. Interest. The determination from National Treasury,
received in November 2012, means that the interest that was previously recognized
as income in previous years will be refunded to National Treasury. The total amount
is R173m, net of taxation, and includes R21m for the current year.
• ICASA settlement of prior year licence fees of R43m. R8m was recognised in
the 2011/2012 financial year and an additional R35m was recognised in in the current
financial year.
From a service delivery perspective in terms of the company’s mandate, the following
were notable achievements:
• 18 new Low Power/ Low Cost (LP/LC) were installed against a target of 18
and 28 Self Help sites were upgraded against the same target.
• In spite of specific and sometimes severe incidents of emergency downtimes,
network qualities of service targets through network performance at customer SLA
were exceeded across the board.
• The BEE target of 50% was also exceeded by 6% attaining 56% of total
infrastructure spent on BEE level 4 and above. SENTECH now has a BBBEE rating of
Level 4, with 65 points.
• A target of 1% was met with regards to the percentage of total infrastructure
spent on Qualifying SMMEs and Exempted Micro Enterprises as defined in the DTI
Codes of Good Practice.
• A new Comprehensive Enterprise Development Framework was developed.
Sentech’s board of directors extends its sincere appreciation to the shareholder and
the parliamentary portfolio on committee on communications for their oversight and
guidance. The board further expresses its appreciation to the customers of the
company for their continued support. Finally, the board extends its appreciation to
the executive directors, senior management and staff of Sentech for their hard work.
