Good day, everyone, welcome to this call to discuss MTN Group's pre-close investor update. My name is Thato Motlanthe, Head of Group Investor Relations for the group. On the call with me is Ralph Mupita, our Group CEO, as well as Tsholofelo Molefe, who is our Group CFO. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today, and I trust you've seen our pre-close update SENS, which was published on the JSE earlier this afternoon. We're introducing this call as part of the continuous enhancements in terms of our engagements with you as our capital markets and other stakeholders. The plan is to schedule a call like this ahead of each of the interim and the full year close periods as we move forward. You should have also seen in the SENS that we've announced a date for our planned Capital Markets Day. You remember it was postponed from the 6th of December, the new date for it is the 1st of June next year. We also sent a save-the-date via email that we blasted out just before this call, so you can calendarize that in the meantime. The plan for that CMD is to just cover a little bit more comprehensively an update on Ambition 2025 and the progress we've made on that. Just back to this afternoon's call. The updates we provided, and you'll have seen in the SENS, we aim to give you a sense of the year-to-date performance of the group up to the 30th of November 2022. With our financial performance numbers such as service revenue, et cetera, they are presented in constant currency as we normally do. We also provide just some color on the trajectory since the nine month report which we published for Q3. Just to give you a sense of the momentum on some of the high-level metrics we shared in the SENS. As we noted in the release, the financial information contained has not been reviewed or reported on by the group's joint auditors. Just a disclaimer there. Please just note that the full year results as we currently have it scheduled will be published on March 13, 2023 or thereabouts. That's for the 12 months ending December 31, 2022. I'll just hand over to Ralph and Tsholo shortly, who will provide an overview of the business and financial performance, as well as give you some outlook remarks at the end. We can then open up the lines for Q&A. You should have access to the Q&A dialogue box where you can type out your questions, which I will read out at the end. Finally, just to note that we do have a hard stop for this call at the hour mark. With that introduction and context, let me hand over to Ralph. Thank you, Thato, good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining us today. For today's call, we'll cover six topics or themes. Firstly, I'll speak about how we are navigating our operating context, I'll just remind you of the measures we have in place to manage the challenges in our trading environment. Second is a high-level business update, which will cover some of the headline trends to give you a sense of how we performed post Q3 reporting at the Group and in our two largest markets. Third, I'll provide a brief update on how we're progressing with some of our portfolio transformation initiatives. For the fourth update topic, I'll hand over to Tsholo to provide some color on upstreaming and balance sheet resilience. After that, I'll come back with some comments on some of the regulatory and legal matters you have possibly read about over the past few weeks, and that will be topic number five. After that, I'll speak on topic six, which is some feedback on progress we are making in ESG and sustainability. Finally, I'll wrap up with some concluding remarks. In terms of the first topic, the operating context, we did provide some color and comments with Q3, but just to recap a few points. Trading conditions have remained challenging in Q4 so far. However, we are encouraged with the continued resilience of the business, and we've managed to sustain service revenue growth in line with our medium-term guidance. Overall, inflation in the markets remains elevated at this stage, with the blended inflation rates in our markets ticking up further to around 17.2% as of the end of November 2022. You will recall that we noted a 15.4% blended inflation rate at the end of September 2022, which was already up from the 9.1% blended rate at the start of the year. To give a sense in our large markets, inflation was around 7.5% in South Africa, 21.1% in Nigeria, you may have seen in the news that Ghana came in at a 15.3% print as of the end of November 2022. Although communication spend is fairly resilient, we find across our markets, disposable income has come under pressure. We are also managing the impacts of higher energy costs across our markets, as well as additional costs related to load shedding and vandalism of sites in South Africa. The regulatory environment remains complex, we're managing it well, guided by our risk appetite framework. That provides you with some context of our operating environment, which should be familiar to you by now. I think it's important to just remind you of what we are doing as management in the business to navigate these inflationary and other macroeconomic challenges. We have spoken about an eight-point plan in our previous engagement with capital markets, which I'll briefly recap. In terms of commercial interventions, the first one is a focus on pricing, to optimize effective rate for per minute for voice and effective rate per gigabyte for data across our top five markets, but also more broadly across the portfolio. There are three main levers we are pulling. Firstly, headline pricing adjustments. The second one is driving our customer value management or CVM engine to enhance effective pricing. The third is optimizing our free traffic in voice and data bundles. We are seeing the results of these interventions, including in the large markets, and it has supported the performance of South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana in particular under the tough trading conditions. In South Africa, we're implementing device margin improvement initiatives and expect the benefits of these to deliver improved device margins for full year 2022 relative to the H1 of 2022, and that these will flow into 2023. That's the second point within our 8-point plan. In terms of supply chain, we have comprehensive risk management strategies in place that have been actually in place for quite some time, and we're managing the challenges in our supply chain quite well. We continue the engagements with major vendors on local currency pricing and improvements in price books. Interventions two and three respectively of our plan entail advanced purchase orders, sustaining rolling coverage for spare and critical parts, and improving price books, as I mentioned earlier on. This work is all progressing well. We remain engaged with telco partners in various markets to renegotiate some tower agreements. This is one of our key interventions to manage network risks and expenditure as we move forward. We will update you as and when appropriate regarding the outcomes of these. We believe these will help cushion the business from inflation and foreign exchange volatility over the medium term. In terms of rising energy costs, we're actually navigating this reasonably well, and this has been helped by a relatively low contribution of energy cost to total cost. At a group level, energy costs contribute about 5%-7% to total costs. MTN South Africa and MTN Nigeria are in that 5%-7% range. MTN Ghana is somewhere between 10%-12%. In Nigeria, I think we explained previously that we are also shielded there, as most of the MTN Nigeria telco leases do not include a diesel pass-through. In South Africa, load shedding and load reduction has got worse. For context, we've experienced 47 load shedding days in just October and November, compared to 53 days in all of Q3, and have experienced vandalism of sites related to battery theft. The power outages and vandalism are affecting the operating performance of MTN South Africa. In terms of its network resilience plans, MTN SA is busy with phase III of its 4-phase resilience plan. This will entail additional batteries, generators, and enhanced securities at sites. The resilience initiatives to the key sites identified should be completed by the end of Q1 2023. It builds on the first two phases for battery rollouts, which were completed at the end of August 2022. That covers point number five and six of the eight-point plan. Point seven and eight speaks to building financial resilience, which Tsholo will talk a little bit more about. Just to call these out, our key interventions speak to an acceleration of expense efficiencies and working capital initiatives, as well as liability management for further shoring up our balance sheet. This provides us with the financial flexibility to execute on our strategy and also to absorb shocks that may arise in what is a fairly challenging macroeconomic environment. That is really to remind you as investment stakeholders that we are very actively, as management, and at MTN, working to ensure we deliver on our strategy and medium-term guidance. With that context, let me turn to the business performance and provide you with some high-level and directional context of how the group has trended post Q3. You will have seen this in the statements we released earlier this afternoon. It is topic number two on today's agenda, and I'll cover group, South Africa and Nigeria, and fintech trends, all in constant currency terms. Growth in group service revenue for the 11 months to November was approximately 14.8%, representing some acceleration relative to the 14.3% growth reported for the nine months to September 2022. There has been some pressure on overall group EBITDA margin, and directionally this was slightly lower in the period to November 2022 when compared to the same level reported for September 2022. A lot of this was due to the pressure in MTN SA, which has been largely expected and flagged. MTN SA's service revenue growth for the 11 months to November slowed slightly to 3.2% when compared to the 3.5% growth reported for September 2022. I'd say that this was a resilient performance given the challenging trading environment and load shedding. We continue to see pressure at the low end of the consumer prepaid market as consumers' disposable incomes are impacted by food and transport inflation. As mentioned, the MTN SA EBITDA margin, excluding the gain on SA tower disposal, was under some pressure for the year to date in November and was tracking just slightly below the medium-term guidance range which we have set for ourselves of 39%-42%. This was due to the top line and cost pressures arising from the challenging environment. The frequency and duration of power outages, which has been worse than expected, as well as increased costs to restore and secure vandalized sites have impacted margins. For MTN Nigeria, service revenue growth was up to 21.3% for the year to November 2022. Recall that the growth was around 20.7% when reported to September. A pleasing acceleration in growth in line with our expectation and medium-term targets of at least 20%. The performance was supported by solid growth across all key revenue drivers in the business, and EBITDA margin was in line with the 53.6% reported with our Q3 results. For MoMo PSB, we're progressing well with the work to strengthen IT and control systems in order to reopen the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System or NIBSS. We are taking a measured and systematic approach to this and reopening the NIBSS interface with the inbound service on track to reopen during this month of December 2022. This will support MoMo PSB's wallet funding to drive customer activity during the December holiday period. The outbound service, which supports the merchant strategy, is scheduled to reopen in early 2023. Turning to FinTech service revenue growth, grew by 13.6% in the year to November period. This is a slight acceleration compared to the 12.9% reported at the end of Q3. The recovery in Ghana was sustained in the period, and Cote d'Ivoire recorded a positive year-on-year growth in the month of November. The overall trajectory in the FinTech ecosystem remains robust, with momentum in transaction volumes growth slightly higher for the period to November compared to the 32.7% growth reported in Q3. This growth was supported by the continued build-out of the agent and merchant network, where growth accelerated post Q3. Before I move over to the third topic, FinTech separation and portfolio transformation, very briefly, we're broadly on track on the work to separate the fintech business, and we've also launched the second phase of engagements with potential strategic investors into the Group FinTech business. We still anticipate that the outcome of this process should be completed in Q1, 2023. In terms of our exit of Afghanistan, we had indicated that we had received a binding offer to acquire MTN Afghanistan for $35 million gross. We have made some progress towards concluding agreements. We also expect this process to be finalized in Q1, 2023. Let me pause here and hand over to Tsholo to talk about the fourth topic, which is upstreaming and our balance sheet. Thank you very much, Ralph. Good afternoon to everyone. As mentioned earlier, I will cover topic number four, which is an update on our cash upstreaming from our various OpCos, as well as our strong financial position. If I start with upstreaming, the group has upstreamed a total of ZAR 17.3 billion in dividends and management fees in the 11 months to 30th November. That is an additional ZAR 5.8 billion since the quarter three update. We previously reported that we upstreamed ZAR 1.5 billion from Nigeria in October 2022, we can update you that we've managed to now repatriate a further ZAR 475 million during the month of November. The ZAR 475 million in November was upstreamed at a similar average rate as the October flows, which we previously disclosed as just over NGN 560. We have now upstreamed a total of ZAR 17.3 billion from our total OpCos in the 11 months to November, with a total of ZAR 6.5 billion upstreamed from Nigeria in the same period. This leads me into unpacking in a bit more detail the financial resilience elements of our 8-point plan, which Ralph mentioned earlier. If I start with the expense efficiency program, we are accelerating our initiatives in this regard. Just as a reminder, we reported ZAR 2.8 billion inefficiencies in the period to September 2022, and we will continue to drive our programs to mitigate inflationary pressures in our markets. We continue to optimize our working capital, and we are focused on ensuring that we procure our CapEx as efficiently as possible. On the latter, we do expect our CapEx deployment to close 2022 slightly above ZAR 35 billion that we had provided in our previous guidance. This is due to foreign exchange movements and accelerated CapEx in South Africa to support their resilience network resilience initiatives. This is contributing to some pressure on the development of our free cash flow in the near term, which is also impacted by the payments for license and spectrum, and acquisitions of about ZAR 8.1 billion that we had already reported on in the year. As I indicated, we did flag this in the quarter three reporting. We are, however, pleased with the overall strength of our financial and liquidity position. Both consolidated and Holdco leverage ratios at 30th November 2022 were largely flat on the September 2022 levels. Just as a reminder, these were around 0.4 x as well and 0.8 x, respectively. We reported previously on our liability management initiatives as well, which has enhanced our overall leverage at group as well as currency mix. We are continuously evaluating opportunities to further enhance our financial position, which we will update you on as appropriate. The liquidity position of the group remains very strong, with the cash balances and committed undrawn facilities at November also tracking at similar levels to what we reported at Q3. We are confident that we have the flexibility in our balance sheet and liquidity position to pursue growth in line with our disciplined capital allocation framework and absorb any shocks that may arise. On that note, let me then hand over back to Ralph. Thanks so much, Tsholo. I'll round off with the remaining topics of the call. The fifth topic is legal and regulatory matters. The first one, you'll have seen some of the announcements and news flows around the Turkcell claim against MTN through their subsidiary, EAC. We published an announcement on this on the 1st of December, and we are pleased that the High Court of South Africa dismissed that claim with costs. The High Court was clear that South African courts do not have jurisdiction over the case and brings to five the occasions that Turkcell has attempted to pursue legal proceedings in respect of largely the same matter. All of these have thus far failed, including in reputable international arbitration panels. They have subsequently indicated their intention to appeal. However, we are quite firm in our position that their claim is without merit, and MTN will continue to robustly defend its position and oppose any appeal that is lodged. In the regulatory environment, the work on NIN-SIM registration is ongoing, and we are managing this through driving growth in gross additions and other commercial interventions. It provide a sense of MTN Nigeria's continued solid operating performance. In Ghana, we are also due for a call on the SIM re-registration directive in that market on the thirtieth of December. By way of update, we indicated that 5.7 million subscribers would be barred, which was completed. Since then, about 20% have been reactivated and MTN Ghana will continue to drive reactivations. We are comfortable with the level of recharges that we're seeing on a weekly basis in Ghana. In Ghana, you may have seen that the government of Ghana announced plans to reduce the e-levy from 1.5%-1%. The amendment also proposed the removal of the 0-100 GHS per customer daily exemption threshold for untaxed transactions. These changes are awaiting parliamentary approvals and we'll update you on any further developments. Moving on to ESG and sustainability, our sixth topic. We are making very good progress here and remain committed to our targets on net zero emissions, diversity and inclusions, as well as rural broadband coverage. We are recording steady continued improvement with ESG rating organizations, and I know many of you follow these quite closely. They are noting the improvements in critical areas of the business such as data privacy and security, as well as corporate governance. Some of you may have seen last week that the Ranking Digital Rights recognized MTN as the most improved company from emerging economies in this Telco Giants Scorecard. We are pleased to have achieved this for the second year in a row. It was attributable to improved disclosures and policy on digital human rights related issues. Wrapping up now, let me conclude with some brief closing remarks. We are pleased with the continued resilience of the business. We have provided you with a sense of how the overall performance has held up. We are tracking broadly in line with our medium-term targets, including mid-teens service revenue growth. There has been delivered through this continued execution of our strategy and focus on capital allocation. As Tsholofelo mentioned, we continue to invest in our networks, anticipating closing this year slightly above the previous guidance in terms of CapEx deployment. Our Holdco leverage remains well within guidance and mix of debts and maturity profile all improving. I would like to reiterate the assurance that the management team is committed to delivering on our Ambition 2025 strategy and medium-term guidance. We have previously communicated our dividend guidance for ordinary dividend payouts of ZAR 3.30 per share for FY 2022, and we remain comfortable in that. We are making solid progress in driving our ROE towards 25% target. In the nearer term, we are navigating the current macroeconomic volatility through the eight-point plan that I outlined earlier, and we're implementing this to sustain our growth and emerge even stronger. Finally, as Thato mentioned, we are scheduling a Capital Markets Day for the first of June 2023 next year. This will be, you know, two and a half years since we launched Ambition 2025. It's a bit of a halftime review on how we've progressed, and we hope that you'll be able to join us as we unpack the progress we're making against our strategy within the current macro. Thanks very much for listening. I'll hand over to Thato to field any Q&A we may have. Thato? Thanks very much, Ralph and Tsholofelo. Question of clarity on the line, then we'll see what other questions come up. Just to clarify, the group service revenue growth of 14.8%, is it in constant currency? What is the reported currency service revenue growth? Um- Tsholofelo? Yes, it is in constant currency. In, in reported currency, it is, lower than that. Just giving two seconds for any other questions to come through. Maybe a relatively short call. No, no, we're fine. No, no. Another question's come through. Today there's news on Bloomberg that MTN is trying to dispose some of the smaller WECA operations. What is management's view on this? If true, which markets are MTN looking to exit? I'll pick that one up, Thato. I mean, we don't comment on market speculation, as I think is policy for us. I mean, we obviously, as a company, when we have considered something as firm, and we have a firm intention, we will communicate. I mean, there's nothing more, actually to say on this matter. Okay, couple of questions. Reconnections. Could you please comment on negotiations with tower companies? I suppose just some broad context. Very broad question. Yeah, I mean, just on the tower companies, I mean, we basically, you know, have, you know, probably four tower companies that work within our portfolio more broadly. We have IHS, we have ATC, Helios, you know, would be the main ones to talk about, you know, across our footprint. You know, we have a series of tower portfolios that are coming up for renewal and at the point of renewal, we will sit and talk to them about, you know, the pricing. We're looking for a lot more local currency pricing. We do accept that, you know, there is a diesel dollar cost, we don't expect to have, you know, 100% local currency pricing. We, we do seek now to have much more local currency pricing, you know, in that regard as a first point. I think the second point is we prefer space and power constructs to our tower costs as opposed to technology-based pricing. That's something that, you know, we are looking at. Obviously, you know, power becomes you know, a really important point and where we have sit down clauses, you know, we look to invoke some of these sit down clauses. I mean, the overall sense that we want is to try and reduce, you know, foreign currency and inflation shocks that will come through our network OpEx line. That's what we're actually looking at. As we mentioned with Q3 trading update, there are a couple of countries where we're looking at that. We mentioned Nigeria, we did mention Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Zambia. We wonder were the other examples where we have some portfolios of towers that are coming for renewal and those conversations are ongoing. Thanks, Ralph. A couple of more questions. Outside of the SIM registration issues, is the operating environment getting better in Ghana? Has repatriation out of Nigeria been getting any easier? Yeah, AJ, I mean, outside of SIM registration, I think as I mentioned, you know, we try and also look at recharge levels. You know, Ghana is a prepaid market, so weekly recharge levels give you kind of an early indication of, you know, the resilience of the business. I mean, we don't think there's no issue of concern there. I guess for us, the bigger issue is the broader macro. Inflation is very elevated. You know, it's a positive development to see the IMF facility, you know, being provisionally agreed. That's going to board early next year. That should help with balance of payments and, you know, ideally, you know, reduce inflation. We've seen the Cedi already start to recede from the high levels. It was touching, almost going towards 15, it's come back in recent days. You know, outside of that, I think, you know, you know, we continue to have, you know, the leading network, so you know, that's where the traffic is coming to. There's a flight to quality effect we're certainly seeing in the markets and and Ghana is benefiting from that. The other part of the question, I see these questions are moving very quickly. Has repatriation, Nigeria. Nigeria improved? Um, we have- Has it gotten any easier? Well, it's been as it is. I mean, maybe Tsholo you wanna talk about it, but I don't think it's gotten better or worse. Tsholo. I mean, it We can't say it's gotten better. I think it has been as it is. As we've indicated, we have been able to upstream 80% pretty much of the interim dividend. As I indicated, we've upstreamed ZAR 475 million post the October, and we have done ZAR 1.5 billion during, at October, and as I indicated, it's still at the same levels that we repatriated earlier in the year when we reported. I would say that it's been really, you know, the same levels. Thato, should we take Cesar's question? Yeah. Yeah. We got a few more questions. Next one is, are the reconnections in Ghana happening faster than what you expected? They are happening faster. I mean, as we noted that there's a class of customers who we didn't disconnect, you know, because of the difficulties of getting the Ghana Card. In the last couple of weeks, you know, the reconnections that we've seen 20% up of the original base that we've disconnected, that's pretty fast, much faster than we've had in Nigeria, if you use that as a comp. It's ahead of expectations for sure. Thanks, Ralph. Next question: In South Africa, you provide more insights to revenue trends between postpaid, prepaid, enterprise and wholesale. Yeah, let's start with prepaid. I mean, prepaid, Sam, is really under pressure, and I think it's a function of two things. One is the consumer, battling, you know, both food and transport inflation. If you think about, at that, lower end of the market. I think the voice prepaid has been actually a little bit better than we had at Q3. Just a little bit better. We spoke to you that voice prepaid, I say, was negative double digits. It's negative single digits to the end of November. There's pressure there for sure, and that hasn't gone off. It's a combination of actually both the consumer under pressure, but also the network availability. As we mentioned, you know, actually, you know, people talk about load shedding. There's load shedding, and then there's municipal load reduction. There's a bit of a double whammy in some parts. Then we've got the vandalism. A combination of pressure and the network availability. When we look at 2G availability, 3G availability, that's more the low end of the market. 4G availability is, looks a little bit much better for the network. That's also impacting. Prepaid under pressure. Postpaid, you know, relative, you know, resilience there. You know, again, it's probably more impacted by the network availability for power. You know, wholesale is, enterprise is doing well. The trends in enterprise have remained, you know, pretty strong, and so is wholesale picking up. I mean, the key area of concern is really around, you know, prepaid. Well, just one. SA, can you elaborate on the measures taken to contain SA margin pressure? When should we expect margins to return to the target range? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think maybe just to add, I think we've been encouraged by, you know, the efforts, you know, by the business to contain, to protect the margins. The expense efficiency program has been, you know, bearing fruit, you know, across all the OpCos, but also in South Africa. We've seen, you know, a good traction in terms of the expense efficiency program, relative to, you know, our target for this year and where we are. We're quite encouraged by, you know, the number of initiatives through our expense efficiency program in terms of, you know, network, IT, sales and distribution and other areas within the business from a finance perspective. Yeah. I mean, I'll just the other point I would just make is, I mean, device margin is one area of margin management that we highlight that we're working on. As I said earlier on, we're seeing improvements there. I mean, to give you a sense of when we'll get there, I mean, there are quite a few factors, I think it would be irresponsible of us as management to say exactly when that will be. I think the one is, obviously the top line's affected by network availability. We're pushing hard to get all batteries into all our sites end of Q1. I mean, we're well arranged and working with RHS in that regard. You've got to deal with the battery deployment and dealing with battery theft. I think battery theft, and the vandalism that goes with that actually is now at a level that I would argue is probably a national crisis issue. You know, the network availability for 2G and 3G in particular, that will drive the top line, and that's a function of batteries and other sources of power that, you know, we will have. And as Tsholo's mentioned, I mean, we're driving expense efficiency initiatives, device margin, managing our costs very well. What will be the biggest driver of that actually is the top line and, you know, both the state of the consumer at the bottom end as well as, you know, network availability. Our plan is to get all sites, you know, with backup power, by the end of Q1. As all of us on this call know, I mean, the situation with Eskom is actually challenging and also unpredictable. I mean, we will push hard to keep the business in that 39%-42% corridor. You know, there are some externalities that we, you know, are, you know, beyond us in terms of managing. Thanks, Rob. Sula, the next one, any update on the localization in Ghana? No, there's no further update. I mean, I think, you know, right now it will be actually also quite challenging, you know, to do any localization and also, you know, putting pressure on repatriation. I mean, you know, I don't think you should anticipate seeing any progress on localization in Ghana in the near term. A follow-up question in terms of the macro. It sounds like the operating environment is still challenged. It seems to be getting better. Is that a fair statement? I'm not sure it's getting better. I think we are just a bit more resilient as a business. I mean, if you cover the key markets, South Africa's load shedding, load reduction, vandalism, and the state of the consumer. I think, you know, quarter three to quarter four in South Africa, I would say that actually, you know, has gotten a bit worse. You look at Nigeria, I think, you know, Nigeria operationally, it's improving. I mean, I think the Nigerian business, we had said this with H1 results, is that we felt that the Nigerian business could pick up, and actually voice is picking up and growing very strongly in the last couple of months. We're seeing good voice growth still coming out. Nigeria operationally actually is much improved. Ghana, I mean, I think there's a flight to quality, you know, dynamic that's, you know, helping us, you know, deliver solid growth there across all areas. You know, if you just purely look at the numbers, you would say, you know, Ghana's getting better, but obviously there's a macro which is challenging. You know, I wouldn't say it's necessarily getting better. It's different for each of our key markets. I would argue that, you know, we've been, as I mentioned, our focus area has really been around, you know, issues around pricing, you know, and, you know, trying to get better yield on pricing. These things will play out in the next couple of quarters. All the discussions with vendors as well as telco companies so that we can actually absorb that. I'd argue it's more, you know, the execution that's helping us here. The macro's not getting any better. Maybe just a follow-up question on pricing, as you mentioned there. Can you please comment on whether you look to put through further price increases as you move into next year in the OpCos, given the various inflationary challenges you're facing on costs and CapEx? Yeah, apparently we have to. I mean, you saw our numbers on blended inflation. You know, we look at inflation numbers across our markets. We, you know, our story is based on us to be able to grow above blended inflation. Because inflation, you know, got elevated so quickly, you know, we have to play catch up. The discussions we are having, you know well our position in Nigeria, we still are engaged with authorities there, 10% price increase and so that's coming through and in South Africa, we will be looking at a price increase, headline price increase in the new year as well. I mean, we can't avoid that discussion. You know, particularly given the CapEx that has to go in the ground. We'll continue to report on, you know, where we've made progress, you know, across our markets. We anticipate price increases for next year, for sure. Not easy to pass through, but we have to have the discussions with the authorities, if we want to sustain the quality of networks. These networks have become, you know, people have appreciated them as critical national infrastructure, and they need a minimum level of investment, and that level of investment, you know, comes from cash flow. Cash flow, you know, we need to put the inflation adjustments across markets in 2023 for sure. One question on Ghana. In the update call, management indicated that 3 million customers were likely to be lost in the exercise. Do you still stick to the same figure? Any changes in impact to service revenue or EBITDA? Yeah. I'm not seeing any changes to, you know, guidance more broadly to in Ghana. I mean, the thing we've learned with these SIM registrations is that, you know, these things are not linear. I would caution against modeling, you know, on the numbers here in terms of, you know, anticipated impact. You know, growth connection activity, as an example, and managing your churn law can actually just improve your, you know, the recharges that you're getting, coming through. On guidance for Ghana, I mean, you know, there's no change to guidance as we speak right now. Great. Can you give us some more color on the progression of mobile money revenues in Nigeria? I mean, it's As we mentioned at the Q3 update, I mean, we've taken a deliberate decision to kind of slow down, you know, the rollout of MoMo. You'll see that absolute wallets, we didn't comment on the wallets in Nigeria. They're probably pretty stable. I'm comfortable, you know, with the work that Ellie and team have done there. As we noted in the pre-closing statement, we're opening up the NIBSS inbound. you know, people can fund their wallets, and I think, you know, at this particular point in time with the changes that are coming with notes and circulation between now and the end of January, that there's a nice use case for us there to collect up some of the, you know, the old currencies that will not be legal tender next year. we're pushing ahead with inbound, just as we're now getting into, I think it's probably actually next week when we launch that. very early on, probably at the end, early on in next year, probably at the end of January, we will also be doing the outbound, and then we'll really pick up there. I think you should see wallet development, you know, push very strongly, you know, in the H1 of next year. That's where, you know, last time we did say that, you know, there may be a margin impact as we push more aggressively. That aggression you should see in the H1 of next year, and it could have, you know, a slight, you know, margin impact on Nigeria margins. This next question we wouldn't comment on, but maybe you can just give some high-level thoughts around it. Do you have a specific valuation or multiple in mind below which you would not dispose of a stake in fintech? Not asking that you disclose it, but broadly, is it possible that there's a big difference between the bid and the Yeah. It's a great question, Cesar. We're very mindful that we have very valuable assets here. You know, the sub-base has grown in the period as well. You know, we haven't given the certain numbers for this pre closing call, but we've seen good growth on the base. We have a clear internal view of what would be fair value that our shareholders would see also as fair value. I think there are enough data points out there that says, you know, what would be seen as fair value. If we can't get that at the end of the process, which we're in now, I mean, we would simply not proceed. Another opportunity, another window will come, you know, beyond. You know, we're very mindful that investors are looking at fintech valuations and where they've drifted off. Now, if you're looking at those as multiple reference points, I mean, we wouldn't be continuing any discussions with any of the parties. Let us see where we end up with them in the next couple of weeks, maybe max two months, when our process should be completed. You know, we will then communicate the outcome. You know, we have an internal view of fair value, and if we can't conclude that way, I mean, you know, Tsholo would always like some money to come in and get in. We're not, this is not a distressed asset at all. So, we certainly are not gonna be anywhere near what we see as current fintech valuations out there. actually, our business, you know, is a quite a well-developed business, and it funds its own growth. I mean, this was driven more by partnership acceleration, and, you know, desire to also partner us at kind of the Holdco level. Hopefully, in all of that, Cesar, I've kind of answered your question. I mean, there's no fire sale here. Yeah, there is a real possible outcome where we don't proceed and do anything because, you know, we're not desperate. Can you talk about where you will allocate capital for growth and scale going forward? How much capital could you potentially deploy over the next two years? I mean, let's sort of speak to our capital allocation framework. I'll probably add in one or two points. Yeah. I mean, I think our capital allocation framework has not changed. We will continue to invest in faster growing areas, organically, you know, the, you know, connectivity operations, in terms of our 4G, 3G, 4G and also, you know, accelerating 5G into the future. Also, you know, as we accelerate our platform businesses, it will be important for us that we continue to invest in that area. As we've indicated, our CapEx intensity overall will still, you know, stay within, you know, the 18%-15% mark. With the platform businesses, of course, being very capital light, we don't see a situation where we spend more than 5% from a CapEx intensity perspective. Yeah. I mean, the one thing I'd add is that, I mean, offering, we still think it's valid for where we are in kind of our strategy. De-leveraging the balance sheet, you know, is taking up a number 2 spot. I mean, there's, there'll be a point where we get to a comfort where that can't be the number 2, you know, batting order point, and we have to reconsider the capital allocation framework. You know, does shareholder remuneration come a little bit higher? Et cetera, et cetera. How do we think about M&A and where in the M&A frame, you know, do we'll be much clearer or more focused on, you know. Obviously, there are elements of M&A that are strategic and that we would want to, you know, be clear with investors. I think next year, when we think about, you know, to your question, over the next three years, I think, you know, we broadly will want to spend, you know, CapEx along the levels that sort of spoke about where we are ending off this year. I think that's kind of what goes into the network and IT. You know, obviously for South Africa, we're gonna continue, you know, with the, you know, with the focus on ensuring network resilience, and we work with that, you know, with IHS. Hopefully that gives you a sense of the kind of capital allocation. The batting order remains the same for now, but the faster we make progress on the hard currency debt, you know, the quicker we will rethink that framework and, you know, think about a different form of, on the shareholder remuneration side. Just dovetailing on your comments on SA, how are you thinking of energy costs in South Africa, I'm guessing in the context of load shedding? It will be higher than the current 5%-7%. Will MTN mitigate this? Will MTN mitigate this by bringing this cost down, and by when? You know, I mean, what Charles is buying, and I think he said in the Q2 trading update, he's buying availability, so he buys power as a service, you know, from IHS and ATC. There's a portfolio of towers that's ATC. We have power as a service agreements, and, you know, within that, you know, we can sign up to high levels of availability, platinum being the very highest. And, you know, when you pay there, then you pay more in your OpEx. I mean, we're moving from being a kind of a non-telco company in South Africa towards being a telco company, within the context, of, you know, of 2023, when IHS has got its hands fully on the SA network. I think you've got to think about it, you know, what's coming through, you know, what level of power does MTN request IHS and ATC to deliver? There will be parts of, you know, diesel pass through, but they're not that significant within the SA context. The main thing is we're buying availability. I saw a question on your end. Okay. The next question: What is MTN's progress on dealing with regulators in regards to price increases? You did touch on this earlier. Also is MTN aware of any new taxes or levies that might come with the macro environment in countries? You know, in terms of price increases, we did a price increase in the postpaid book in May. As I mentioned, you know, price increases, you know, will come through in the new year, you know, within South Africa. Nigeria, we've spoken about the 10% that, you know, we've spoken to the minister. That was reversed. We went back and said, "Listen, we still need that." Let's see where we get there, you know, either before the elections or just after the elections. We're standing pretty firm on that. More broadly across markets, we, you know, we're looking at it. As I mentioned before, I think the way to think about prices is kind of the price, the effective yield we're generating. The one form is headline price increases. The other is, you know, is the CVM, this contextualized pricing. You know, we've just launched in South Africa Made For You, off our new CVM engine, which we call MBX. That should also help in South Africa. Also just removing the amount of, you know, free data, or just free traffic for both voice and data. You know, with the market becoming a bit more benign and kind of market repair, you know, in the past with, you know, competitors and I guess in some instances we were also involved, you know, obviously giving very rich offers. Like, everybody's pulling back. We now have a clear view of, you know, what should be kind of the sustainable amount of free data to, for promotional activities. That's all going to also help, you know, with pricing going forward. A couple of questions on M&A portfolio transformation. Is MTN Irancell on the chopping block as part of the Middle East portfolios? First question. Second one, any update on a potential deal with Telkom? Third one, will MTN be bidding for the license in Ethiopia? Yeah, Jay, you always ask difficult questions. Yeah, I mean, we've said in the Middle East that we're focused on exiting the previously consolidated. Syria is out, Yemen is out, and we're making progress with Afghanistan with M1. As I said, we hope Q1, all conditions are met, and then, you know, we'll have, you know, really simplified our portfolio. Iran, we've said that, you know, we would look, you know, over time, around that business. We've said it's manageable value. What I do think is important for investors to know is that Iranc ell as part of its license condition, you know, has a listing obligation in the course of next year. We're evaluating what form of listing will work with our partners there. I guess we'll take it on from there. You know, 'cause that I think will also be an important, you know, you know, point of strategic consideration, going forward in terms of, our 49% shareholding there. There's no updates on Telkom. There are no conversations. On Ethiopia, I mean, we won't be bidding for a license. Our hands are very full, at the moment, as you guys well know. Okay, next question. What is the balance outstanding from Nigeria, from the Nigerian subsidiary to Group at end November 2022? Nigerian subsidiary? In terms of upstream. Okay. I mean, it's probably about 20% of the interim dividend outstanding. Yeah. As well as the sum. Yeah, there's a portion of the IPO. The IPO. yeah, that's probably about 25% outstanding or even less. It could be less. What's the absolute rand number again? We'll get the number. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think on the Nigeria upstreaming, the dividend, it's about $13 million outstanding. Thereabout. On the dividends. On the dividend, yeah. The Q2. Q2. All of the Q2 is done now. Yeah, most of it is done. Okay. On SA, please provide insight into the degree to which network availability in SA could improve, post-implementation of phase 3 of the network resilience plan, assuming current levels of load shedding persist. Can you give us a rough sense on the% of sites that have no backup power versus 4 or 8 hours of battery backup? All right. Lillian's gonna put that thing into a model. I promise you, we don't disclose it. No, we don't disclose. I mean, I think the way to think about it is that the current level of outages, like, actually is actually very extreme and very difficult for batteries to have a full recharge cycle. Even your best lithium batteries are gonna battle with, say, six, you know, six-eight. Anything up to, just up to six, I think is really manageable. I mean, phase III, I think there's I mean, there's a bunch of taboos that I mustn't disclose. I mean, more sites. I mean, we'll close all the sites in, within the next three months. I think, you know, a significant majority of our sites have got batteries. Thomas, I can't mention the absolute number, so I think significant will give you comfort that the network is. I think the real issue is the real unspoken issue in South Africa is actually the level of vandalism that is going on. You know, when people are trying to steal batteries, and this is not just our network and I think in competitor networks, they do look to, you know, end up actually vandalizing the whole site. You can't even, you know, the radios are not even on. You know, may need replacement. Yeah, I mean, the current level of load shedding is not ideal for you know, for meeting medium-term guidance in South Africa, if we sustain it at this level. Given inflation pressures may remain elevated for a while, which one of your medium-term targets, medium-term guidance items are you perhaps the most worried about? Yeah, look, I mean, the top line is a function of pricing and our own ability to effectively improve our yields, whether it's removing excess offers, and, you know, personalized pricing. I think, you know, that's top line. Also you need regulatory approval. I'd argue that that one is the one that I'll probably be most worried about, but that interacts with the other KPIs as well. I don't know, Sophia, if you want to add to that. Yeah, I mean, I would agree. I think, obviously, because there's more, you know, obviously engagement with regulators in terms of pricing in some instances, even though we do look at, you know, other initiatives from a CDM perspective. I think on the margin side is probably where we could, you know, try as much as possible to protect the margins through continued efforts of cost saving. Yeah. I would argue that it's probably more the top line because, you know, the EBITDA margins, we could always be a lot more aggressive as much as we can on cost savings. Thanks, Tsholo. Before just wrapping up the call, what NGN dollar rate are you getting for A, CapEx and B, repatriation? I think you just closed the repatriation. Yeah, it's. Yeah. I mean, NGN 560. I mean, the repatriation we said is NGN 560. I mean, the CapEx is, you know, primarily at the official rate, which is really roughly around NGN 450. Yeah, they're all about on average. Yeah. The last question for the call. What portion of Ghana's P2P transaction revenue is derived from the 0-100 GHS band? I can't remember that number. Do you remember it, Tsholo? I think it's probably about 50% of the volume. Yeah. It's one of the volume. Yeah. We'll get the revenue, but it was zero-rated for a long time. Yeah. Through COVID. Okay. That is the last question on the call. Ralph, I don't know if you've got any parting shots, some merry Christmas wishes. No parting shots. You're very kind of aggressive. No, it's suffice to say, thanks to all our shareholders and investors supporting us. It's been a challenging year. I think we've put in a, you know, a solid performance under the current macro. Yeah, and we will come back in the new year. Teams are all taking breaks, and I'm encouraging them to take, you know, decent breaks, so they'll come back in the new year. Yeah, we've got a good plan we set up for next year. Again, very focused on execution and, you know, hopefully, the elevated inflation will start tapering down, 'cause I think that's the big challenge we face. In terms of executing, building networks and so forth, I think we've got that ballpark down. You know, the macro, you can't control that. But we will do our best and, yeah, and we wish you all, you know, some time to relax with family and loved ones, and see you in the new year.