The Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has disclosed that shareholder loans of AirtelTigo were not transferred to the state as part of its takeover of the company.
Other creditors have either written off loans advanced to the company or slashed down the liability, Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful also said.
The Government and the parent companies of AirtelTigo, Bharti Airtel Ghana Holdings B.V. and MIC Africa B.V have concluded negotiations and signed an agreement to transfer the shares of the company to Ghana.
This was after the company’s departure from the Ghanaian market in October 2020 as announced by Airtel and Millicom.
The agreement transferred all customers, assets and agreed liabilities of AirtelTigo to the Government of Ghana.
Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful noted that “the shareholders of Airtel and Tigo are not passing on the shareholder loans that were advanced to the company.”
According to her, “that is one of the main items that was hurting the balance sheet of the company.”
“So 100 percent of all the loans have been forgiven, more or less. They are not seeking the repayment of those loans.”
Among the notable liabilities was a $100 million facility from Standard Charted Bank.
But according to Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful “the company is now only saddled with 50 percent of that liability.”
“These measures also helped free the company from the debt burden that it was under,” she added.
The minister assured all local creditors of the company that “we are going to sit down with them and look at ways in which we can assist the company to meet its obligations towards them.”
AirtelTigo serves around 5.1 million subscribers and offers direct and indirect employment opportunities to almost 10,000 people.