In the financial year ending September 2003, the company made a loss of Lm102,000. In the same year, wage expenses for the 51 employees amounted to Lm529,000, or 52 per cent of the company’s sales.

The DOI said that the goverment’s share capital of Lm600,000 had dropped to Lm239,000 as a result of an accumulated debt of Lm361,000. In September 2003, the company’s debt amounted to Lm829,000.

In spite of a stricter control on expenses, the company’s results went from bad to worse, the DOI said. In fact, in the first five months of the new financial year, the company had registered a deficit of Lm65,300, which added to the previous total amounted to Lm426,000 in accumulated debt.

If this trend was to continue, the company would have to close down in March 2005.

The Ministry of Information Technology and Investment had four options: close down the company and dismiss all the workers; diversify the company’s operations; restructure the company or privatise it.

The best decision, the DOI said, was to restructure the company even though this meant the dismissal of the 15 employees. The General Workers’ Union has been informed about the matter.

Before the decision was taken, an early retirement scheme was offered to the workers but this strategy did not work, the DOI said, adding that if the situation continued to deteriorate in spite of these dismissals, the company is still at risk of being closed down.