2006-04-04Staff Report 2 "By Petronella Sibeene WINDHOEK Namibia Post Limited (Nampost) has recorded huge profits amounting to N$9.3 million for the financial year 2004/5. Announcing financial results to key stakeholders last Friday, Chief Executive Officer of Nampost Sakaria Nghikembua indicated that for the financial year 2004/5, Nampost experienced its best financial year since its commercialization in 1992. During the year under review, profit after tax was N$16.9 million compared to a loss after tax of N$1.7 million in 2003/4. This represents a turn-around of N$11 million. Core revenue also grew by 21 percent year-on-year from N$149.5 million in 2003/4 to N$180.5 million in 2004/5. This growth, according to the CEO Nghikembua, comes from, among other efficient services, mail which is Nampost's core business. While individual mail might no longer be as popular as before technology expanded, corporate mail has increased bringing in the process enormous profit to Nampost. In September 2004, Nampost took the decision to reduce the number of loss-making post offices across the country from 40 to 25 and this brought about an improvement of about 38 percent. Further, Nampost savings bank recorded another good year with the portfolio of investments by individuals recording 11 percent growth to a new record high of N$3 244.4 million. In total, 15 000 new savings accounts were opened and in an effort to improve quality service, the business replaced the savings book system with the introduction of Smart Cards. The treasury department also performed well with revenue exceeding the budget by 165 percent while profit after tax exceeded budget by 169 percent. These outstanding results, Nghikembua says, were achieved through the strategic marketing of the treasury services to different corporate, regional and local authorities and private businesses. Though most services reported significant amounts of profits, the courier services did not yield profit as such, and a host of personnel changes have been introduced as a way to prepare for a complete turn-around in both financial and service levels in the next 24 months, the CEO said. Income grew to N$35.4 million in the 2004/5 financial year compared to N$25.5million during the previous year. The total company assets reported growth by 47 percent while net assets grew by 103 percent. General Manager of Finance Norman Cloete added that Nampost did extremely well on shareholder equity standing at 28 percent. The target set by shareholders is 12 percent. He stated, ""We are on the right track and we will do well this year."" The company has for the financial 2005/6 budgeted N$13 million for projects that are anticipated to give Nampost blue-chip status by 2010. With all the positive achievements made in the financial year 2004/5, Nghikembua indicated the business faces a challenge of continuous measuring of performance hence a need for a strong skills base across the business. He was however positive that this is just the beginning of the busi-ness's way to growth. ""We want to be a valuable asset to the shareholders, we want to be consistently profitable and every year improve services and make all statutory payments,"" he ended." 2006-04-04Staff Report 2
