The NTA-Star TV Nigeria Limited has said no N200billion is missing from the joint venture account as claimed by the Senate joint committee on finance and national planning.
The Public Relations Manager of NTA-Star TV, Lazarus Ibeabuchi, said on Thursday that the N200bn in question was a mathematical assumption arrived at by adding N13bn plus N11bn and multiply by 11 years to arrive at N200bn.
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According to him, the figure was not based on the audited report of the company from 2008 to 2019.
“The fact is N13bn in 2018 and about N11bn in 2019 were gross earnings.
“The business cost was not deducted before arriving at the allegedly siphoned figure.
“Gross earnings have been repeatedly ploughed back into the cost of production to cover the cost of components, namely transmitters, equipment, generating sets and satellite, content acquisition, as well as operating costs, which include salaries and other running costs, incurred within our ten years of operation,” he said.
He said the NTA-Star joint venture has paid over $25m or N10bn in taxes from inception to 2018.
He added that there were several benefits NTA had been enjoying over the years through the joint venture.
“For example, the venture transmits nine NTA channels nationwide for the past 10 years at no cost to NTA, thereby extending the frontiers of NTA to the eyes of the relevant public and advertisers.
“There are two ways an investor can make profit, either you get a yearly dividend if profits are declared or the value of your shares goes up and you can cash out at any time.
“NTA-Star is probably worth more than three times the original value since inception, (this is, of course, subject to proper valuation by a competent body).
“NTA can decide to sell their stake at a huge profit if they need cash right now,” he explained.
He said the venture had made huge upfront investment of over $200 million and the long-term cost recovery had met brick-walls with successive years of naira devaluation.
“Pay-TV business is capital intensive and has a long gestation period.
“The business just like many multi-billion Naira businesses requires a relatively long time to be profitable.
“The Nigerian situation is influenced by our local environment.
“More than 80 per cent of inputs are dollar-denominated.
“Recall that the Naira has lost more than 100 per cent of its value since 2015, making it more and more difficult to meet dollar-denominated obligations.
“There are many dynamics which have affected our operations.
“These include operating in a competitive market and the devaluation of the local currency which negatively impacts the program fees and satellite licence fees in local currency terms.
“There are also requirements to build and operate transmission sites in non-profitable locations in line with the requirement of the partnership agreement with our joint venture partner, the Nigerian Television Authority,” he added.
He said the company welcomed any audit of its financials and will provide utmost support for this to be carried out at any time.
“Asides statutory audits carried out by our auditors; the company has had its financial activities fully audited by the Federal Inland Revenue Service for the period up to 2017,” he said.
The probe
The Senate had in August disclosed that it was probing the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and StarTimes Joint Venture Agreement over the non-profitability of the venture which had been since 2008.
The chairman, Senate Joint Committee on Finance and National Planning, Solomon Adeola, said this during an interactive session with some revenue-generating agencies of government.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the upper chamber had queried the management of NTA, over 12 years of non-profitable venture with StarTimes.
The joint venture agreement was that whatever accrued at the end of every financial year, 70 per cent goes to StarTimes and 30 per cent to Nigeria.
Mr Adeola queried why some of the accounts of StarTimes were in dollars and naira
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