MTN's woes in its operations outside of South Africa have continued, this time in Uganda where three senior managers have been arrested and deported.
The mobile operator confirmed the deportations in a statement, saying: "MTN Uganda has not been officially notified of the grounds for these arrests and deportations, and is trying to establish the precise reasons for the deportations."
On 19 January, MTN Uganda chief marketing officer Olivier Prentout was arrested by police at Entebbe airport upon arrival from a business trip abroad. Then on 21 January, MTN Uganda head of sales and distribution Annie Bilenge Tabura was arrested by unidentified security personnel upon arrival at the MTN headquarter offices, in Kololo, Kampala.
Subsequently, Prentout and Bilenge were deported from Uganda to their home countries, France and Rwanda, respectively.
MTN said on 22 January, Elza Muzzolini, head of mobile financial services, was also deported from Uganda.
"We are understandably concerned about these developments and the wellbeing of all our employees. MTN Uganda is fully committed to respecting and operating within the laws of the country," MTN group said.
It is unclear if the deportations are linked to recent criticism from Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni over MTN Uganda's reduced fee for renewing its telecoms licence.
Reuters reported last week that Museveni had in a letter, to the communications minister and the attorney-general, criticised the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) for slashing MTN Uganda's fee for renewing its licence. MTN Uganda was reportedly charged $58 million to renew its licence for 10 years instead of $100 million originally set for the renewal.
MTN Uganda is the country's biggest telecoms operator.
Troubled times
The MTN group operates in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East, and as of 30 September 2018, had 225.4 million subscribers across its operations.
However, the group has had a tough time over the past few years in a number of its African operations.
In November 2017, MTN Benin CEO Stephen Blewett was requested to leave the country by the government of Benin for his alleged engagement in "activities detrimental to security and public order".
This was after Benin's telecoms regulator initiated a process to review the reasons why MTN has not paid outstanding invoices on frequency fees. The frequency fees matter has since been resolved and Blewett was allowed to return to Benin in May 2018 after a six-month exile from the country.
Meanwhile, in August 2018, MTN was ordered by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to bring back a total of $8.1 billion it alleged the company had illegally repatriated in breach of foreign exchange regulations.
In late December 2018, after months of negotiations, the South African telco announced MTN Nigeria and the CBN agreed to resolve the matter on the basis that MTN Nigeria would pay the notional reversal amount without admission of liability. Yesterday, MTN paid the $53 million settlement and the matter has been withdrawn from court, central bank governor Godwin Emefiele told Reuters.
This was the second round of legal trouble MTN faced in its biggest market, Nigeria, in recent years. In October 2015, MTN announced it was facing a $5.2 billion (R71 billion at the time) fine from the Nigerian Communications Commission. This after the telco failed to meet a deadline to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered SIM cards on its Nigerian network.
The matter was finally resolved in June 2016, when MTN promised to pay 330 billion naira over three years, the equivalent of $1.671 billion or R25.1 billion at the time. According to the original schedule of payments, MTN still has two more N55 billion instalments to pay this year, one on 31 March 2019 and the final one on 31 May 2019.
MTN's share price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange has dropped by 32.8% over the last year, according to Bloomberg data, and since the beginning of 2019, it is down by 2.7%.