Sugar producing company, Illovo Sugar Plc, has announced a profit of MK 6.1 billion for the half year ending February, 2021.
This is according to Illovo Sugar Malawi Managing Director, Lekani Katandula, who made the announcement on Friday June 25, 2021 at a stakeholders meeting in the commercial of Blantyre.
Katandula said the company has managed to make this historical profit despite the Covid-19 pandemic which has paralyzed businesses in the country and the global at large.
He said the first half of the year, 2021 which ended on 28 February, 2021 has been so good hence the 200 percent profit compared to MK2.1 billion which was made for the same period last year.
The managing director said this has been so because of favorable weather condition for growing sugarcane and he also attributed the profit as a result of reduced sugar prices in the country since December 2019.
“Today we were presenting the performance of the business for the past six months which ended in February this year and it is pleasing to announce that the profitability has gone up by 200 percent, thus from K2 billion last year to 6 billion this year.
“We managed to achieve this by focusing on our cost structure. We worked really hard to reduce sugar prices, we did not increase the prices on the domestic market. In fact, we sustained a lower price which where a packet of sugar was reduced from K900 to K800,” said Katandula.
Katandula further said that there is possibility that shareholders will keep on making more profits as well, adding that there is an improvement in dividends as this year’s first half the interim dividend stand at K4 per share compared to last year’s K2 per share.
However, one of Illovo Sugar shareholders Frank Harawa who commended the company for doubling the profits, said the public limited company can make a very huge profit than this if it can further reduce the current sugar prices.
“Our concern is that the issue of Zambia this, Zambia that doesn’t really add up. We believe the best way could have been to produce more sugar and sell it at a cheaper price and this will surely see more people in the country buying the local sugar. Otherwise, people will keep on buying Zambian sugar which is cheaper than ours,” worried Harawa.
In some parts of the country, Malawians are buying and using Zambian sugar which they buy at MK600 per 1kg compared to the local 1kg packet which is selling at MK800.
