Phone Firms Owe Millions To Ministry

Cambodia’s five mobile phone operators owe more than $10 million to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for unpaid international call charges, senior ministry officials said this week.

After watching the debt mount for several years, the cash-strap­ped government is pushing hard to get the companies to pay, working out payment plans and threatening tougher measures if payments are not forthcoming. But some in the industry say the companies, which are themselves saddled with bad debt, should not have to pay it all.

Posts and Telecommunications Secretary of State So Khun said Sunday the debt stems back to 1992 and the majority of it comes from fees for overseas calls.

Mobile phone companies are re­quired to turn over the revenue from overseas calls to the ministry. The ministry then shares the money with Australia’s Tel­stra, which has an exclusive contract with the government.

Representatives of the five mobile phone companies in question—CamTel, Shinawatra, Mobi­Tel, Samart and Tricel­cam—were either unavailable or declined to comment Wednesday.

The problem for the companies, Undersecretary of State Lar Narath acknowledged, is that they have had many customers who have not paid their bills.

“Each operator has a situation of debt with revenue collection,” he said. “It amounts to a very big debt.”

An industry source said that the government’s demands for full payment of international fees is unreasonable.

Common international practice, he said, is for governments to give operators a discount on payments ranging from 10 percent to 30 percent. The discount is to cover the cost of billing, payment collection and bad debt.

In Cambodia, the source said, the ministry expects “100 percent of the fee whether there is bad debt or not.”

The industry source said that some of the overdue payments also may be from annual royalties due to the ministry, which is a joint-venture partner in several of the networks.

A breakdown of how much each company owes was not available.

Lar Narath and So Khun both said that the total is roughly $10 million. At least one company has a debt of more than $4 million, Lar Narath said, and he noted Samart is one of the companies which has made efforts to pay off its debt.

In addition to money owing from the private operators, the ministry is having its own problems with land-line subscribers not paying their bills, Lar Narath said. At least $1 million is outstanding, and the ministry has implemented a policy of cutting off customers who do not pay their bills within 45 days.

Revenues from posts and telecommunications services amounted to 83 billion riel ($21 million) in 1997 and were predicted to increase to 100 billion riel ($25 million) in 1998, according to the Finance Ministry. The sector has been consistently named as one that the government needs to get more money out of as it weans itself from reliance on customs revenues and international aid.

While any source of revenue is important now for the government, the outstanding bills also leave the Telecommunications Ministry with a cash shortfall when it comes to paying its monthly bills to overseas carriers. The shortfall is made up by the Finance Ministry, Lar Narath said.

“It is a great concern,” he said. “If we are late we must pay 15 percent interest.”

The ministry has stepped up efforts in recent months to get the mobile-phone firms to pay. The ministries of Finance and Posts and Telecommunications have agreed to give each operator a 6 percent discount, Lar Narath said, and the goverment is willing to take payments in installments “within a a limited period.”

It was not clear if a deadline had been set. But Lar Narath said he favored getting tough. “Now the ministry should work on this problem by saying that each company will be disconnected if they don’t pay but can’t say when,” he said.

 

 

 

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