The South African government is ready to intervene in a dispute between telecoms company MTN Group and the Nigerian government, if MTN asks for help, South Africa’s Telecommunications Minister Siyabonga Cwele told Reuters.
“If they need our assistance, then we will engage our counterpart in Nigeria,” Cwele said on the sidelines of a telecoms conference in Durban.
Cwele also said that MTN has told the South African government that talks continue between the company and the Nigerian government.
Last week, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) slapped MTN Group with a $2 billion tax bill.
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The announcement of the tax bill comes days after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ordered MTN Nigeria hand over $8.1 billion that it said was illegally sent abroad.
CBN also imposed a N5.87 billion fine on Standard Chartered Bank, Stanbic-IBTC, Citibank, and Diamond Bank over alleged illegal remittance of foreign exchange to offshore investors of MTN Nigeria Communications Limited.
“These are old issues that have been investigated and closed but now they are being reopened,” Byron Lotter, a portfolio manager at Vestact in Johannesburg, said, adding it was possible MTN would be reviewing its presence in Nigeria.
