By Own Correspondent- TelOne has appointed a consultant who will advise the company on the restructuring of its staggering $380 million debt as it seeks to clean its books and attract private capital.

TelOne is among a number of state-owned enterprises and parastatals that have been earmarked for reform as government moves to wean off the entities, which have become a drain on the fiscus.

Some of the state-owned companies will be sold off completely, while others such as TelOne will dispose some equity for capital investment, TelOne Managing Director Cipo Mtasa revealed.

She said:
   
“As you might be aware, we are earmarked for partial privatisation this year.

We are in discussions with our parent (ICT) ministry and the Ministry of Finance and a lot may depend on how the privatisation progresses.

I cannot give specific dates as to when we will finish, but what I can tell you is that we have brought a transactional advisor on board but is yet to be cleared by our ministry.

We have actually completed all the procurement procedures for that.

From now we will be working with the transactional adviser.

The advisor will be tasked with preparing all the detailed financial, technical and legal work required to prepare for partial privatisation.”

Mtasa said last year the company lost at least $10 million due to network vandalism.-TheStandard