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8 March 2011

Telkom appalled at deliberate Brand bashing

A prominent business daily published a lead story yesterday headlined "Contract for Telkom sparks fraud charges", in which it is claimed that Telkom is at the "centre of a bitter row" over the awarding of multi-million rand contracts.

Telkom dismisses the story and the headline it is published under as an unprofessional and unethical attempt to fabricate a link between the Company and a partnership disagreement between two independent parties who provide services to Telkom. The writer has deliberately dragged Telkom's name into this dispute, in which Telkom is not involved.

Telkom emphatically points out that the tenders referred to in the article were awarded directly to Asaje, and not individually to any of the organisations that make up its BEE equity shareholding. The Company is dismayed that the daily publication has insisted on naming Telkom in the report, especially when it was explicitly stated to the reporter that the matter under dispute was strictly between Amdocs and Kwezi, and did not involve Telkom in any way.

The story insinuates that Telkom may not have followed strict adherence to due diligence measures in the awarding of a tender to Asaje (Amdocs South Africa Joint Enterprises).

According to the story, one of Asaje's "former" (sic) partners, Kwezi Technologies, accused Asaje of using their information, and that of two other empowerment partners, to win Telkom contracts.

For the record, Telkom states that the matter was previously raised with Telkom by Mkhabela Huntley Adekeye Inc., representing Kwezi Technologies. Telkom sought clarification from Asaje and subsequently received a letter from Gildenhuys Lessing Malatji Attorneys, representing Asaje, that the matter was a dispute between shareholders.

Telkom exercises caution when dealing with shareholder matters involving suppliers, and the Company does not act as arbitrator in these matters. Legal teams from Kwezi and Asaje were dealing with the matter, and Telkom has consistently maintained that it has no involvement in the matter.

However, Telkom did clarify Asaje's BEE shareholding and remains satisfied with the response provided by Asaje. Telkom is of the view that, even without taking Kwezi's shareholding into consideration, Asaje would still have a 35% equity shareholding, which is acceptable to Telkom for the awarding of tenders.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Pynee Chetty

Senior Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel:+27 12 642 1716

Mobile: +27 81 389 7874

Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za

 OR

Leigh-Ann Francis

Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel: +27 12 642 1728

Mobile: +27 81 391 4780

Email: francilm@telkom.co.za

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ABOUT TELKOM:

Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R16.8 billion and normalised profit after tax of R1, 683 million for the period ended 30 September 2015. Total assets amounted to R41.9 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R23.5 billion as of 30 September 2015. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R1.4 billion for the period ended 30 September 2015.

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

  • fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
  • fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
  • interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
  • fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
  • Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
  • W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
  • mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile navbar-brand called Telkom Mobile;
  •  information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connexion Group; and
  • other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.