{"id":14539,"date":"2012-06-05T15:14:02","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T13:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=14539"},"modified":"2012-06-05T16:22:12","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T14:22:12","slug":"mtn-investigation-to-take-time-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/14539\/mtn-investigation-to-take-time-hawks\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN investigation to take time: Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a title=\"Democratic Alliance (DA)\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1696-DA-Democratic-Alliance\">Democratic Alliance (DA)<\/a> says that an investigation by elite crime-fighting unit the Hawks, into <a title=\"MTN Group (MTN)\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1640-MTN-Group\">MTN Group<\/a> for\u00a0alleged\u00a0corruption, would take time as part of it would be conducted outside South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The Hawks confirmed that it will investigate the mobile operator on allegations of corruption relating to its license in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>MTN owns 49% of <a title=\"Irancell\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/413680-Irancell\">Irancell<\/a>, the group that was awarded the 2nd Iranian GSM licence.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish mobile operator Turkcell has launched a $4.2 billion lawsuit in a US court accusing MTN of bribing its way to the Iranian licence and alleging human rights abuses. MTN denies the charges.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"David Maynier\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1698-David-Maynier\">David Maynier<\/a> MP, DA shadow minister of\u00a0defense\u00a0said in a statement on Tuesday (5 June) that general Anwa Dramat, head of the directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks), confirmed a formal probe into Iran bribe claims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn 30 March 2012 I wrote to the Hawks requesting an investigation into allegations of corruption relating to the MTN Group securing a mobile operating licence in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis followed allegations, which emerged in the United States District Court of Columbia in Washington DC, that <a title=\"Phuthuma Nhleko\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1644-Phuthuma-Nhleko\">Phuthuma Nhleko<\/a>, former chief executive officer of the MTN Group, with the assistance of a small group of senior employees, engaged in what was referred to as &#8220;unprecedented corrupt acts&#8221;, in order to win the mobile operating licence in Iran, in a scheme known as &#8220;Project Snooker&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Maynier noted that the allegations, which remain unproven, include inter alia the claim that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a payment of U$ 400 000 was made by MTN to Iran&#8217;s former Deputy Foreign Minister Javid Ghorbanoghli for assistance in securing the mobile operating licence;<\/li>\n<li>a payment of US$ 200 000 was made by MTN to South Africa&#8217;s former Ambassador to Iran, Yusuf Salojee, to assist with delivering a pro-Iran position at the International Atomic Energy Agency; and<\/li>\n<li>MTN financed a trip by Iran&#8217;s nuclear negotiation chief Hassan Rowhani to meet former President Thabo Mbeki to discuss South Africa&#8217;s position on Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The DA minister said that on 4 June 2012, general Anwa Dramat informed the party that the Hawks were &#8220;investigating the allegations formally&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was also informed that the investigation would take time to finalise since part of the investigation will have to be conducted outside the Republic of South Africa and will require formal mutual legal assistance proceedings,\u201d the shadow minister said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf these allegations are true they suggest that MTN may have been involved in corrupt activity in trying to secure a mobile operating licence in Iran in possible contravention of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act (No. 12 of 2004).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese very serious allegations cannot simply be investigated by an independent committee within the MTN Group ,\u201d Maynier stressed.<\/p>\n<p>In afternoon trade on the <a title=\"JSE Limited\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1663-JSE-Limited\">JSE<\/a>, shares in MTN were up a fraction to R136.09.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Hawks swoop in on MTN\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/14532\/hawks-swoop-in-on-mtn\/\">Hawks swoop in on MTN<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/14390\/mtn-denies-intimidating-former-employee\/\">MTN denies intimidating former employee<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/9480\/turkcell-will-struggle-to-bring-mtn-case-in-us\/\">Turkcell will struggle to bring MTN case in US<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/9251\/mtn-the-fish-and-project-snooker\/\">MTN, The Fish, and Project Snooker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/7642\/mtnturkcell-talks-break-down-amid-extortion-claims\/\"><strong>MTN\/Turkcell talks break down amid extortion claims<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/5572\/mtn-turkcell-in-talks-over-bribery-lawsuit\/\">MTN, TurkCell in talks over bribery lawsuit<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Democratic Alliance (DA) says that an investigation by elite crime-fighting unit the Hawks, into MTN Group for alleged corruption, would take time to as part of it would be conducted outside South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":9673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3035,2187,2061,3033,26,1361,28,1292],"class_list":["post-14539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-anwa-dramat","tag-david-maynier","tag-democratic-alliance","tag-hawks","tag-headline","tag-irancell","tag-mtn","tag-turkcell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14539"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14554,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14539\/revisions\/14554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}