{UAH} Uganda set to deport MTN chief
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Uganda set to deport MTN chief
Wim Vanhelleputte CEO MTN UgandaKampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT & AFP | MTN CEO Wim Vanhelleputte is set to be deported tonight, according to sources, weeks after three of the company's expatriate staff were expelled.
His expulsion, if confirmed, will be a major blow to the South Africa-based corporation who are still rocking from the expulsion last month of three of their expatriate employees in Uganda.
MTN Uganda's general manager for mobile money Elsa Mussolini, an Italian citizen, marketing chief Olivier Prentout, a French national, and Annie Bilenge-Tabura, a Rwandan who was head of sales and distribution were deported. Ugandan authorities accused them of using their positions to "compromise national security", without giving further details.,
In a message to her staff published in local media and confirmed by MTN, Mussolini said she was deported following accusations that she gave opposition figure Bobi Wine money during his campaign last year against a proposed social media tax.
Separately, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Twitter recently he had met MTN's chief executive Rob Shuter on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos .
The pair discussed "an array of issues", Museveni wrote, without mentioning the deportations of staff.
MTN has complained in recent months of ill-treatment by Ugandan authorities, as focus has turned to the overdue renewal of its licenses.
MTN Uganda CEO deported.
Godfrey Mutabazi, the executive director at UCC, a government agency mandated to issue licences to telecom firms told The Independent in an interview that they are ready to renew MTN licence once it agrees to fulfil some of the conditions as stipulated in the policy.
"The current issues surrounding MTN (of deporting its executives) is a separate matter being handled by a different entity," he said. "Our (mandate) is to grant them licence once they meet the conditions as stipulated in the policy."
MTN's 20-year license expired in October last year. The company applied for a 10 year extension and UCC gave it an initial interim renewal lasting 90-days pending resolution of some issues with the coming on board of the National Broadband Policy before a final license is issued.
MTN has around 10.5million subscribers, and controls slightly more than 50% of the country's telecom market that has approximately 23million subscribers.
Last July, MTN said armed men claiming to be from Uganda's Internal Security Organisation "kidnapped" two of its contractors and forced them to open up the company's main data centre, where they made an unsuccessful attempt to access servers.
MTN Uganda said at the time that it took the "criminal incident" seriously and had reported it to the authorities, while adding it didn't believe it was under investigation.
The telecom firm, one of Africa's largest, has run into legal trouble elsewhere.
Last month it paid Nigeria a $53-million (46.7-million euro) penalty following allegations the company illegally repatriated more than $8 billion to South Africa.
The deportation of a Rwandan staffer from Uganda has raised speculation that a feud between the two neighbours may have played a role.
Uganda has occasionally arrested suspected spies for Rwanda, while Rwanda has accused its northern neighbour together with Burundi of supporting rebels opposed to President Paul Kagame.
RELATED STORY: MTN Uganda's troubles
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