According to Ato Afful, the managing director of the business, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) owe the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) GH14 million.
He said the GCGL has taken the initiative to write to the Minister of Finance on the direction of its Board of Directors to allow the MDAs to pay off their debt to the state-owned autonomous media company.
He stated that the business had been monitoring the situation and expressed the expectation that “we would get a better handle around that topic” by the end of the next month.
To gain some clarity on that, he continued, “We are working through the State Interests and Governance Authority as well as the Ministry of Information.”
PAC
When the GCGL, one of the organizations under the Ministry of Information, appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament in Accra yesterday, Mr. Afful made the disclosure.
He was responding to a query about the MDAs’ debt to the business from Dr. Samuel Atta Mills, vice-chairman of the PAC.
According to Mr. Afful, the company has a GH24 million overdue receivable, with GH14.6 million in unpaid advertising and GH9.8 million in outstanding subscriptions (copies of newspaper sales).
He continued, “MDAs contribute heavily to the Daily Graphic’s debt; they contribute roughly 60% of the newspaper’s receivables and they also owe the company for advertisements published.
When Dr. Atta Mills questioned Mr. Afful regarding whether the receivables were better this year compared to last, he responded, “That position is much better because out of the efforts at reviewing our business, we had to tighten our credit policy and other systems at the backend of our business, including reinforcing our Finance directorate.”
Report
He claimed that the business could now give both day-to-day and monthly reports that were crystal clear regarding the locations of the company’s revenue buckets and the receivable positions.
However, he added, “One of the arguments I would make is that the debts are not moving that much at the metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies (MMDAs) level.
According to Mr. Afful, the MMDAs’ debt would be low if they made quarterly payments in accordance with the manner in which they obtained subsidies or support.
The receivables, he claimed, had accumulated over a five to ten-year period, and whenever the assemblies were pressured to pay off their debts, they reacted by reducing subscriptions.
Meanwhile, he claimed, the same organizations returned to the business to ask for assistance in promoting government initiatives, claiming that “this is not helping us.”
Mr. Afful noted that it was strange that though the company’s production input costs were dollar-indexed, they had increased thrice over the previous 18 months.
In light of the organization’s continuous role as a “Big Brother” in the media industry, he stressed the need of all institutions owing the company paying their debts.
Textbooks
The Managing Director further mentioned the government’s textbook project, in which the GCGL participated as a printer and completed the delivery of the volumes ahead of schedule, and claimed the company had not yet received payment for the work completed.
Publishers and printers stated that the government has not yet paid them for the project they undertook, and Dr. Clement Apaak, a committee member and Member of Parliament (MP) for Builsa South, encouraged the government to take the necessary action.
The MD responded that the business will take the MP for Ningo-Prampram, Sam Georgerequest ,’s that the Daily Graphic publish radio station frequencies for the benefit of the general public.
In response to the Deputy Ranking Member Davis Opoku Ansah’s suggestion that the company use subscriptions to boost its revenue, the Minister of Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said that while subscriptions were a component of the revenue mix, they were also a source of the challenges that were being discussed, in that some entities, particularly public ones, would subscribe but not pay.
He claimed to have helped the business collect past-due bills, but the success rate had been poor due to clear difficulties.
The reduction of membership fees and related expenses, according to Mr. Oppong Nkrumah, is now preferable to taking on debt.
Times New Corporation
Martin Adu-Owusu, the managing director of the New Times Corporation, had earlier informed the committee, among other things, that the business had not received support for more than 30 years.
“We’ve never had assistance. We are now in control of our fate, he remarked.
However, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah stated that the ministry was considering a number of ideas on how to acquire the corporation help to be a successful organization.
Yes, there are other ideas being thought about, he replied.