MultiChoice Group made a significant contribution to Zambia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimated to be over USD 200 million between 2011 and 2015, according to a recent Economic Impact Assessment report by Deloitte.
The report says the Pay TV Company contributed $65.5 million to the Zambian GDP in 2014/15 financial year alone, amounting to 0.2 percent of total national GDP.
“Between 2011/12 and 2014/15 this amounted to a total of $201.2 million,” reads the report in part.
This estimate consists of the impacts resulting from the MultiChoice Pay TV Group’s spend in terms of wages, taxes, and dividend payments, as well as its expenditures in the supply chain, and the ripple effects resulting from additional demand created in the economy through MultiChoice Pay TV Group’s expenditure in Zambia.
During the 2014/15 financial year, MultiChoice made a direct contribution of $35.9 million to the Zambian GDP in form of taxes, wages and profits paid into the economy.
“The majority of this impact is made up of tax payments made by MultiChoice Pay TV Groupd to the Zambian government, amounting to $26.2 million in 2014/15,” says the Deloitte report, adding that these consist of VAT payments, corporate tax and import duty payments and have more than doubled since 2011/12.
MultiChoice Zambia Group also paid wages of $5.3 million in 2014/15 to its more than 190 direct employees and contractors.
“The direct impact further includes dividend payments to MultiChoice Zambia Group’s shareholder ZNBC, which amounted to $4.4 million in 2014/15, an almost 50 percent increase from the 2011/12 level of $3.1 million,” reads the report.
Over the last six years since June 2009, total dividend payments of $20.1 million were made to the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation.
“The dividend payments earned from MultiChoice Zambia, make up aroud 20-23 percent of ZNBC’s revenues,” says the Deloitte report.
In other areas of the economy, MultiChoice PayTV Group spent an aggregate of $16.7 million in 2014/15 in its supply chain, which has more than doubled since 2011/12.
The report further says MultiChoice Pay TV Group has contributed to the process of digitalization and digital switchover through its investment in the digitalization of broadcasting services.
“The GOtv service is provided using the DTT network which was rolled out in partnership with ZNBC across ten locations in Zambia with further locations planned for the near future,” says the report.
MultiChoice supplies 67 out of ZNBC’s 69 analogue transmitter sites with signal, using its satellite network to rebroadcast ZNBC’s channels to ZNBC transmission sites across the country.
Bufi! Ni propaganda to counter the imminent Chinese competition
DSTV is like drug addiction. It is a drain on income. Salaries and wages and taxes are mere spinoffs to participants. According to Deloittes, Zambia could do better by going into formal marijuana and cocaine production because salaries and wages and taxes can be paid in larger volumes.
WHERE DOES ZNBC TAKE THIS MONEY?
“The direct impact further includes dividend payments to MultiChoice Zambia Group’s shareholder ZNBC, which amounted to $4.4 million in 2014/15, an almost 50 percent increase from the 2011/12 level of $3.1 million,” reads the report.
Over the last six years since June 2009, total dividend payments of $20.1 million were made to the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation.
“The dividend payments earned from MultiChoice Zambia, make up aroud 20-23 percent of ZNBC’s revenues,” says the Deloitte report.
Surely, the biggest contributors are the Millions of ordinary Zambian citizens paying for the service which came out of this investment. If no one turned on, would the millions contributed have amounted to generated income for ZNBC and finally our GDP? Anyway, why just this one investment? Millions have been poured into Zambia in many areas, have they not generated GDP?
Which millions???? Do you know how many people work in Zambia in formal employment? The last figure i saw was 670,000 out of a population of 16million. Thats why even a simple TV station can contribute 0.2% to GDP. Yes some drunk with no clue who happens to be a presidents says foreigners have no say in the country.
Argumentative @TheEngineer (Australia now Germany). You are anti-government. The implication of your argument is that the majority are in informal employment, and that is very GOOD, because gov’t cannot be the source for all employment. Investing in services in Zambia can only turn positive if those services are bought by the citizens which has happened in this scenario. Clearly, there would have been a reduction in GDP and ZNBC income had the citizens not purchased those services. It would have resulted in a loss of income if citizens did not turn on. And YES, other investors have contributed Millions to the GDP of Zambia.
My point is that the are no millions of Zambians who contribute taxes to Government. Most of the tax contribution is Zambia is from foreign companies. A point in case were a mere TV station can contribute 0.2% of GDP. How many Zambians have DSTV if only 670,000 are working? Majority may be in informal sector and contribute nothing. Your president was saying investors can go if they want… Kaunda told them to go and they went… hope you are old enough to know what happened. If not i would ask you to look at your immediate neighbor Zimbabwe.
@TheEngineer (Australia now Germany), come on man! Taxes come out of income and are not contributed directly to GDP. you are being naughty! I am old enough to remember KK’s era. It was not so negative on the economy. Zambians became self reliant. The period was marked by the oil loans dumped into poor countries in the ’70’s and not bad gov’t. Also, debt forgiveness was morally correct. Western gov’t and conglomerates had wrongfully looked for enslavement to buoy, their economies. Copper dependencies wrong. BUT HEY, LOOK AT US NOW! Zambia is doing well. We have corrected one track ‘copper dependency,’ to enlarge our industries for GDP with farming/agriculture opening exciting growth. Currently, we are recovering from commodities price repression.
Really laughable..and how much has gone out given that people pay in dollars!!
How can watching TV be productive? It is only productive to the shareholders of Naspars who have found a sweet spot for exploiting Africans.
And the report does not even mention that Zambian Subscribers pay more than 30% for any selected option of the DSTV bundles. S. Africa and Bots are much lower than the rates paid by Zambian subscribers, regardless of the fact that the Zambian Kwacha is stronger than these currencies.
“This estimate consists of the impacts resulting from the MultiChoice Pay TV Group’s spend in terms of wages, taxes, and dividend payments, as well as its expenditures in the supply chain, and the ripple effects resulting from additional demand created in the economy through MultiChoice Pay TV Group’s expenditure in Zambia.”
This is like those FQM propaganda just pile up every time together to dupe the docile Zambians who are paying over the top…meanwhile use externalize all the profits in neighbouring countries. When you do a search you will see Delotte is in the forefront in revealing this information am suspecting they are Multi-Choice or DSTV are their clients.
Thu 01 Oct 2015, 08:13 – Deloitte revealed that MultiChoice Kenya is the single largest contributor for the growth experienced in the country’s entertainment sector accounting for over 40% of the money paid to production houses. The company also pays 50 to 100% more per episode than local televisions for commissioned shows and films.
“MultiChoice activities in Kenya contributed Sh16billion to Kenyan GDP in 2014 with a direct injection of Sh3.2billion to GDP,” Deloitte said in a report documenting ‘MultiChoice’s Economic Impact in Kenya.’
The company’s economic impact was evaluated through its records on procurement of goods and services in its supply chain and associated ripple effects through the economy. Deloitte also measured MultiChoice Kenya’s direct contribution to Kenyan GDP…
through the sum of its profits, wages and taxes paid in Kenya.
“This direct impact is largely due to the tax revenue that MultiChoice Kenya’s activities generate for the Kenyan government. In 2013 and 2014 the company contributed a total of Sh2.3billion taxes – a contribution that has almost doubled since 2011,” said Deloitte.
About 70% of the company’s direct contribution to economy consists of tax payment while 23% is on wages, 6% dividend pay out to Kenya Broadcasting Corporation and 1% was spent on its Corporate Social Responsibility activities.
MultiChoice pumps over $200 million into Zambian GDP – Deloitte Report. @ LT, your information is baseless. you don’t give names of who from Deloitte gave the report and who from Multichoice said what and when, this does not make sense at all. This show that it’s all a copy and paste information. Please get more details before you bring out information that does not add up.