Some senior MTN South Sudan employees were demanding bribes from prospective subcontractors, hurting the giant telco’s business, a whistleblower has revealed.
The whistleblower said the mobile operator was missing out on subcontracts because some senior employees in South Sudan insisted on hefty bribes.
Radio Tamazuj has obtained evidence on how two senior employees at MTN and ZTE Corporation South Sudan were extorting kickbacks from subcontractors by threatening to deny them lucrative projects.
The South African telco uses equipment manufactured by ZTE Corporation, which also offers it engineering services like engineering installations done by ZTE Corporation subcontractors.
According to the whistleblower, and the audio recording obtained and reviewed by Radio Tamazuj, the senior ZTE and MTN managers connive to extract the kickbacks.
In a more recent incident, the Engineering Project Manager of ZTE and the Head of Capital Projects for MTN South Sudan are captured demanding US$50,000 and 10 percent of every Purchase Order (PO) as preconditions for the award of business to a subcontractor.
In the voice recording, the subcontractor is hesitant to agree to the demands but finally caves in for his company and workers to survive. He agrees to give them 10 percent in every Purchase Order.
He, however, says he could only afford US$20,000 of the US$50,000 required upfront, which was squarely rejected by the ZTE and MTN managers.
The whistleblower and multiple sources said the issue was escalated to the top MTN management in Juba two months ago, but no action had been taken against the culprits.
When contacted by Radio Tamazuj, the MTN South Sudan CEO, Ali Monzer, and the Human Resource Manager, Gabriel Legge, through the company chief legal, regulatory and corporate affairs, Moses Mayor, said: “At MTN, we treat allegations of misconduct with the utmost seriousness and ensure that our anti-corruption policies and all applicable laws and regulations are strictly adhered to.”
Mayor confirmed that the top management was indeed made aware of allegations of violations of “our anti-corruption policy by a whistleblower”.
“Upon receipt of the allegations, we promptly initiated an investigation. It is important to note that investigations of this nature require careful consideration and adherence to due process in order to ensure fairness and accuracy,” he said.
Anti-corruption policy
One of the principles of MTN’s anti-bribery and anti-corruption policy is that employees or associated parties will not seek or accept bribes, kickbacks or any improper payments.
According to the policy, non-compliance and/or involvement in bribery or corruption will result in disciplinary action that may lead to dismissal from employment and could result in criminal proceedings and/or civil action.
About MTN South Sudan
MTN South Sudan is a subsidiary of MTN Group, a multinational telecommunications group with an overall subscriber base of 290.6 million as per MTN Q1 Results 2023 in 22 countries across Africa and the Middle East.
MTN South Sudan is the largest telecommunications company in South Sudan, with the widest network coverage in the country, across ten states, and an estimated 2,519,000 subscribers as per the 2022 report, accounting for 59.7 % market share as of 31 December 2022.
The company was established in 2011, at the time of South Sudan’s independence. Its Headquarters is located at MTN Center- Hai Jerusalem in the capital Juba.