Johannesburg - South Africa’s biggest mobile network Vodacom [JSE:VOD] has announced that its chief financial officer (CFO) Ivan Dittrich has resigned from the company.
Dittrich, who was also an executive director at Vodacom, is set to “pursue his own interests”, said Vodacom in market update on Monday morning.
Vodacom also said that Dittrich is expected to step down from the Vodacom board with effect from July 31 2015.
Meanwhile, Till Streichert - who is currently Vodacom’s executive director for finance - is set to replace Dittrich as CFO from August 1 2015.
Dittrich’s resignation comes after he spent three years at the company. Dittrich joined Vodacom in June 2012 after being Datatec’s CFO since 2008.
Vodacom also announced that Hatem Dowidar, a non-executive director at the company, has resigned as well.
Pay cuts
Dittrich’s departure from Vodacom, though, also comes after he and other Vodacom executives suffered pay cuts at the company.
READ: How much Vodacom bosses get paid
According to Vodacom’s integrated report for the year ended March 31 2015, Dittrich’s total remuneration package fell from R7.5m at the end of March 2014 to R6.2m for the period ended March 31 2015.
The report further highlighted how Dittrich’s guaranteed package increased from R4.5m to R4.7m but his bonus pay was cut from R3m to R1.5m.
Vodacom chief executive officer Shameel Josuub’s total remuneration also fell from R12.98m at the end of March 2014 to R10.9m for the period ending in 2015, according to the integrated report.
Joosub’s guaranteed package for Vodacom’s 2015 financial year did increase from R6.8m to R7.2m but his short-term incentive, or bonus pay, was cut from R6m to R3.7m.
The pay cuts came after Vodacom experienced a R2bn hit in service revenues in South Africa because of major cuts in local mobile termination rates (MTRs). MTRs are the rates telecommunication operators charge each other for terminating calls on their networks.
“This past financial year has been challenging with regulatory changes that have impacted the business, including the change of MTRs (mobile termination rates),” wrote Thoko Martha Mokgosi-Mwantembe, the chairman of Vodacom’s remuneration committee, in the report.
Vodacom is South Africa's biggest mobile network with approximately 30 million subscribers.