MultiChoice Kenya has appeared before Parliamentary Investments Committee on Social Services Administration and Agriculture to respond to questions relating to apartnership between MultiChoice Kenya, state broadcaster Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) and GOtv.
- •Records tabled by Multichoice showed that KBC received Ksh 116 million in dividends in 2010, but only Ksh 96 million can be traced.
- •In the years ended June 2018 and June 2019 KBC did not receive any proceeds.
- •Multichoice attributed this to low subscriptions due to the hard economic times.
The company detailed all queries related to the structure of MultiChoice Kenya, the support offered to KBC, initial funding and network infrastructure, business performance and dividend payouts. MultiChoice Kenya also shed light on GOtv shareholding and co-location and spectrum of GOtv Kenya frequencies.
First to appear before the Emanuel Wangwe-led Committee was who was asked to provide a detailed agreement on how Multichoice Kenya transferred their shares to Multichoice Africa without the knowledge of KBC who were part of the agreement with 40% shareholding.
In his response, Multichoice Kenya MD Nzola Miranda introduced the Committee the new identity of Multichoice Africa which is now Multichoice Africa Holdings BV.
“Chair, this was just a change of the name, which did not affect shareholding. Multichoice Africa Limited does not exist anymore”, he added.
Committee Member, Geoffrey Wandeto (Tetu) and the Vice Chairperson, Caleb Amisi (Saboti) requested that Multichoice furnishes the Committee with all initial agreements for the pay TV services.
- •In his presentation to the Committee, Miranda told the Committee that KBC was to broadcast Multichoice Africa’s international signals on KBC channel 2 platform -a new entity that the whose committee went ahead to question, in the deal.
- •The Committee pointed out that KBC was not getting their proper dues from the agreements and this explains why it has kept on struggling.
- •The Committee directed those copies of Multichoice audited accounts be provided since the dividends remittance sheet was not tallying with what is available at KBC.
They also requested for bank transmissions statements showing money transferred to KBC, the sum of amount that has gone through Multichoice bank accounts to KBC and schedule reporting on financial accounts from the year 1995.
The Committee later met the Chairman of Gotv Kenya, Stephen Isaboke, and Vincent Opiyo, the Regional Finance Director of Multichoice Africa who also doubles up as the Director of Gotv Kenya.
- •The two had been invited to explain to the Committee how in 2012, Multichoice Africa Ltd fowarded a proposal for a joint venture between Gotv Kenya Limited in which Multichoice Africa Ltd offered 40% shares in GOtv Ltd to KBC.
- •KBC Agreed 10 per cent shareholding in GOtv in exchange to KBC sites and infrastructure.
- •The Committee further learnt that the National broadcaster has never earned dividends from the 10%.
The law-makers also questioned how Isaboke, an employee of Multichoice, came to own 30% shares in the deal.
“This is something that needs to come to the attention of the Competition Authority. It looks like an insider job where their employee is positioned for shareholding to ensure the law is adhered to”, Said Wandeto.
Isaboke told the Committee that the offer was for KBC but the regulations of Communications Authority could not allow them. He explained that the 30% was from the Kshs 14 billion capital owned by Multichoice.
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