The National Executive Council (NEC) has rescinded its decision to appoint John Mangos as Managing Director of Kumul Telikom.
Minister for National Planning and Acting Minister for Public & State Enterprise, Charles Abel, announced this yesterday.
Abel spoke to the media following various allegations and concerns raised by the staff of Telikom PNG and the PNG Communication Workers Association (PNG CWA) on Monday who called for the termination of Mangos and Telikom Chairman, Mahesh Patel.
Abel fronted the media to clarify the restructuring of state owned telecommunications companies in Telikom, Bemobile and DataCo
In December the NEC announced the merger of Telikom PNG, Bemobile, and DataCo into one entity called Kumul Telikom. They also appointed Mahesh Patel as Chairman and Mangos as Managing Director.
Today Abel announced that the decision to appoint Mangos to that position has been rescinded as well as several aspects of the proposed ‘Telikom Kumul’ submission to the NEC.
“That has been rescinded and the position is no longer filled,” said Abel.
“The CEO is Michael Donnelly, who continues his existing contract which has several months to run. In the meantime we will go through a proper process of recruiting a Managing Director for Kumul Telikom.”
Abel confirmed with the media that Mangos has an existing contract as a consultant with Kumul Consolidated Holdings, the details of which Abel has asked to be reviewed and possibly amended.
“John Mangos currently has a role here at KCH. He has been involved behind the scenes with some of the restructuring work. He will continue in that role as per his contract.
“In relation to that contract, these issues are new to me so I’ve taken the opportunity to instruct to the new MD to make all the contracts relating to consultants at KCH, available to me, and I’ve also asked them to just brief me on those conditions and the basis of those conditions and how they are structured and whether they are fair and reasonable,” he said.
“So we are looking into some of these matters, I don’t have the information available to me as yet but those concerns are taken on board and we are reviewing those things.
“Suffice to say there is a contract on hand with him and our government is not in the habit of destroying contracts. John is a very professional individual and I think he is doing a good job. That’s not to say we will examine some of these issues though. So we are looking into those.
Meanwhile, Abel said the rationale behind the merger of the three Telco’s is to ensure there is synergy between the state-owned companies and that they are not competing against each other.
He said both bemobile and DataCo will become subsidiaries of Kumul Telikom, however will remain individually intact. Kumul Telikom will also remain a 100 per cent subsidiary of KCH.
“It’s illogical to have companies that are owned by the same shareholder competing in the same space. It’s just inefficient use of capital, inefficient use of resources, (and) duplication of management,” he said.
He added “The amalgamation allows for a cost-effective sharing of resources and market intelligence. It will allow us to realize cost savings and harness the synergies between the three telcos.
“A simple example of the efficiency is that the three telcos will share basic infrastructure such as towers throughout the country. It means we can roll more towers to the greater benefit of all, providing more services at a lower cost,” said Abel.
Abel said the overarching goal of the Kumul Consolidation agenda is to improve synergy, coordination and efficiency to the National Governments participation in commercial activities.