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MTN allegedly transferred 'mind boggling' sum out of Nigeria illegally

Paula Gilbert
By Paula Gilbert, ITWeb telecoms editor.
Johannesburg, 21 Oct 2016
A Nigerian lawmaker says the amount of money that MTN allegedly moved out of the West African nation illegally is "mind boggling".
A Nigerian lawmaker says the amount of money that MTN allegedly moved out of the West African nation illegally is "mind boggling".

The amount of money which South Africa's MTN group is alleged to have illegally moved out of Nigeria is "mind boggling", according to a Nigerian lawmaker.

"It is not what we can sweep under the carpet. We intend to get to the bottom of the fact, all of the fact, nothing but the fact," said senator Olusola Adeyeye, reading out a statement from Senate leader Bukola Saraki. He did not however, specify what the alleged amount might be.

Adeyeye was speaking at the start of a parliamentary hearing to investigate accusations that MTN transferred at least $13.92 billion (R194 billion) out of Nigeria without observing the country's laws.

MTN has vehemently denied the any unlawful money transfers with MTN Nigeria CEO, Ferdi Moolman, calling the allegations "completely unfounded and without any merit".

The latest accusation saw MTN's share price drop 2.25% yesterday with the stock trading at R107.50 at the close of the market. In the past 12 months MTN's share price has fallen almost 36%.

The original allegation came from a motion submitted to the upper house by senator Dino Melaye in September which said the funds had been repatriated "illegally" out of Nigeria between 2006 and 2016 in collusion with four commercial banks.

The accusation also came three months after MTN agreed to pay a N330 billion (R25 billion at the time, R14 billion now) fine to the Nigerian government after about eight months of negotiations.

The original N1.04 trillion (R71 billion at the time) penalty was slapped on the company last October for failing to meet a deadline to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered SIM cards in Nigeria. The fine was later reduced to N780 billion before Nigerian authorities and the MTN leadership agreed on N330 billion, to be paid in instalments over three years.

Nigeria is MTN's biggest market and at the end of June, it had 58.9 million subscribers in the West African nation. The MTN group has a total of 232.6 million subscribers in 22 operations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

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