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01.09.2010 General News

Thumbs Up For Graphic

By Mark-Anthony Vinorkor - Daily Graphic
Thumbs Up For Graphic
01.09.2010 LISTEN

Stakeholders in the state-owned media have given thumbs up to the Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL) for its excellent performance in 2009, in spite of the unfavourable national and global economic conditions.

The stakeholders, namely the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP), the State Enterprises Commission (SEC) and the National Media Commission (NMC), noted that although the newspaper industry suffered serious setbacks last year with many recording negative growth, the GCGL achieved a substantial growth in revenue and increased newspaper sales.

They were speaking at the 7th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the GCGL in Accra yesterday. A dividend of Gh¢400,000 to the government was declared at the meeting.


The Head of the Non-Tax Revenue Unit of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Enoch H. Cobbinah, said information available pointed to the fact that 2009 was a difficult year for the media but the GCGL had remained resilient and proven to be tough.

He said the company continued to maintain its 70 per cent share of the adverts in the newspaper industry despite stiff competition, while circulation of the group’s newspapers had also increased.

He attributed those achievements to the hard work, commitment, innovation, drive and vision of the board management and staff of the company.

He said information available to him pointed to the fact that the company’s prospects for 2010 were promising and expressed the hope that the drive, commitment, hard work and vision of the staff and management would propel the company to greater heights.


Mr Cobbinah also commended the company for novelty programmes embarked upon such as the installation of a new printing machine and charged the management to ensure that the new equipment should help the company to “move further afield” and utilise more than 90 per cent of its installed capacity.

The acting Executive Chairman of the SEC, Mr Yao Klinogo, noted that Graphic Packaging (G-Pak), a subsidiary of the GCGL, had transformed from a loss-making company in 2006 to a modest profit-making organisation.

He commended management of GCGL for restructuring the company, putting in place a new management and challenging management to deliver.

He noted that G-Pak was no longer a drain on the finances of the GCGL and had “kept its head above water.”

The Chairman of the NMC, Mr Kabral Blay Amihere, also commended the GCGL for its performance over the past year and said the management and staff, by the company’s performance, had demonstrated that it was on the right path.

While complimenting the company for the conditions of service it provided for its journalists which prevented them from engaging in nefarious activities, he called for a reflection of the huge profits the company made in the pockets of staff.

He announced that the NMC would come out with a performance scheme for state-owned media which would judge them by how effective their boards of directors were insulating them from governmental control as demanded by the Constitution.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr Emmanuel Baba Mahama, in his statement, said the increasingly open economic and political landscape had promoted competition in the media industry, adding that the increase in the number of daily newspapers had posed a great challenge to the company.


He said customers were now demanding quality and timely delivery of products and services, and added that the company was able to adopt appropriate strategies to stay ahead of the competition while striving to increase the market share.

Mr Mahama said the company continued to maintain its competitiveness with a 70 per cent share of the newspaper advertising market, and a three per cent growth in revenue. Turnover increased from Gh¢25.1 million in 2008 to Gh¢25.81 in 2009.

The company achieved a net profit before tax of Gh¢1.92 million in 2009, which was 47 per cent below the amount of Gh¢3.60 million achieved in 2008.

Shareholders funds, however, increased from Gh¢14.96 million in 2008 to Gh¢15.70 million in 2009.

On the outlook for 2010, he said the launch of the new press, hopefully, would help the company consolidate further its position in the media industry by maintaining higher quality products and improving delivery times of the company’s products to the market.

The Managing Director of the GCGL, Mr Ibrahim Awal, in his review report for last year, said the newspaper sales for 2009 exceeded those of 2008 by 7.6 per cent despite frequent machine breakdowns and late deliveries to the market.

The Daily Graphic, the flagship of the company, contributed 79 per cent of the total newspaper sales for 2009, compared with 78 per cent contribution for 2008, he said.

Newspaper sales, he noted, contributed 52 per cent of the turnover for the year 2009, while revenue from advertising constituted 48 per cent.


He said the new press project for which the company acquired a loan of $7 million from Ecobank, Ghana Ltd and Gh¢3.5 million from Stanbic Bank, would be inaugurated in the last quarter of 2010.

The new press, he said, had the capacity to produce 64 pages, including 32 pages in full colour.

Mr Awal said the entire project would accommodate future demand increases, especially colour adverts, and would also enable the company’s products to get to the market on time.

With regard to G-Pak, the managing director said, the restructuring exercise undertaken had helped improve its operations, adding that the subsidiary made a sales revenue of Gh¢1.15 million in 2009, 14 per cent more than the Gh¢1.01 million achieved in 2008.


Overall, Mr Awal said, the company registered a net profit of Gh¢59,468 in 2009 compared to a net loss of Gh7,953 in 2008.

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