{"id":27581,"date":"2012-11-30T01:12:37","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T23:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=27581"},"modified":"2012-11-30T01:14:06","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T23:14:06","slug":"rhamaposa-slammed-for-shanduka-mtn-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/27581\/rhamaposa-slammed-for-shanduka-mtn-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhamaposa slammed for Shanduka, MTN conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cyril Ramaphosa<\/a>‘s ties to the Shanduka Mauritius purchase of a minority stake in MTN<\/a> Nigera has been described as “pushing the envelope” of the tycoon’s position as chairman of both holding companies.<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa has become the center of controversy over an alleged conflict of interest present in his investment company, Shanduka’s acquisition of a “minority stake” in MTN Nigeria.<\/p>\n

On 28 November, Shanduka Group<\/a>, a company founded and chaired Ramaphosa, paid $335 million for a stake in MTN\u2019s Nigerian business.<\/p>\n

The acquisition of the “minority stake” had been purchased through Shanduka Telecommunication (Mauritius), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Shanduka group.<\/p>\n

Rhamaphosa has now become a matter of media attention in the deal, as sitting as chairman for both parties in the transaction – MTN Group and Shanduka group – poses an\u00a0alleged\u00a0conflict of interest, bringing the transaction into question.<\/p>\n

Managing conflict<\/h3>\n

Speaking to 702, the institute of directors of Southern Africa CEO, Ansie Ramalho<\/a>, explained that the alleged conflict of interest is technically legal and above board according to South Africa’s Companies Act.<\/p>\n

“The presence of a conflict of interest does not necessarily taint a transaction in terms of corporate governance – nor is it unlawful,” Ramalho said.<\/p>\n

“[In business] it’s difficult to avoid conflict altogether, and it’s for this reason that our company’s act actually provides for such a situation.”<\/p>\n

“The standpoint, legally, is that a conflict should be avoided as far as possible; if the conflict cannot be avoided, [the legal processes] involve declaring the conflict as soon as it becomes known to the director, and also refraining from participating in the decision-making process concerning the transaction,” Ramalho said.<\/p>\n

Ramalho continued: “Any company with good corporate governance would make a point of documenting these decisions – documenting that it’s been raised with Mr Rhamaphosa and the decision that was taken – in order to manage this conflict.”<\/p>\n

Ideally, Ramalho said, first prize is that these kinds of transactions are avoided.<\/p>\n

“We need clean business”<\/h3>\n

However, outspoken chief investment officer at First Avenue Investment Management<\/a>, Hlelo Giyose<\/a>, still criticised Ramaphosa and the deal on 702.<\/p>\n

Giyose said that Ramaphosa “has even more responsibility to ensure he is above reproach on factors beyond technicalities.”<\/p>\n

“You don’t do things on the basis of their technicalities – you have to look beyond the technicalities, especially if you are as intertwined as Cyril is,” Giyose said.<\/p>\n

“People take for granted how implicit the government is in MTN’s success – in no small part because of him (Ramaphosa) playing political cover for MTN.”<\/p>\n

“He’s running a play he has set a long time ago – and he knows it more than anyone else. And that’s not really what you want to teach kids in business schools,” Giyose said.<\/p>\n

“We (South Africa) need really good, clean business here.”<\/p>\n

Giyose continued, saying that the political climate – where Ramaphosa is pegged as a potential new deputy president of the country – and the Shanduka\/MTN deal, is leaving Ramaphosa open to many insinuations.<\/p>\n

“If you want to be in the political arena – in a position to serve people and get their trust – you need to do things that aren’t self-serving,” the chief said.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

Ramaphosa\u2019s Shanduka claims stake in MTN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN Zone numbers impress<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN Group subscribers up to 182.7 million<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

DA questions MTN bribe accused reinstatement<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Turkcell\u2019s MTN lawsuit put on hold<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN lifts interim revenue by 17.5%<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cyril Ramaphosa’s ties to the Shanduka Mauritus purchase of a minority stake in MTN Nigera has been described as “pushing the envelope” of the tycoon’s position as chairman of both holding companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":27589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[4730,4728,26,2159,28,1099,4729],"class_list":["post-27581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-ansie-ramalho","tag-cyril-rhamaphosa","tag-headline","tag-hlelo-giyose","tag-mtn","tag-mtn-nigeria","tag-shanduka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27581","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27581"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27592,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27581\/revisions\/27592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}