{"id":40523,"date":"2013-06-24T11:38:01","date_gmt":"2013-06-24T09:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=40523"},"modified":"2013-06-24T12:01:11","modified_gmt":"2013-06-24T10:01:11","slug":"mtn-in-iran-da-wants-more-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/40523\/mtn-in-iran-da-wants-more-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN in Iran: DA wants more answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Democratic Alliance<\/a> has raised further questions relating to MTN<\/a>‘s operations in Iran, which have come under immense scrutiny since initial claims of bribery were brought against the mobile operator by\u00a0Turkcell<\/a>\u00a0in early 2012.<\/p>\n

In July 2012, South Africa suspended Yusuf Saloojee<\/a>, its former ambassador to Tehran, pending an investigation into his ties to MTN.<\/p>\n

Saloojee<\/a>\u00a0was named in a Turkcell suit against MTN for allegedly taking a $200,000 bribe from the SA mobile operator to help it win an operating license in Iran.<\/p>\n

However, in October 2012, the DA determined that that the ambassador was back at in post,\u00a0while an investigation into acts of bribery was still in progress.<\/p>\n

MTN has a 49% stake in Irancell \u2013 the group that was awarded the 2nd Iranian GSM licence.\u00a0Turkcell was a rival bidder for the licence.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Turkish operator eventually dropped its $4.2 billion\u00a0US lawsuit against MTN in May, citing a recent US Supreme Court ruling that hurt its case.<\/p>\n

Turkcell had originally claimed that\u00a0MTN made \u201cimproper payments to an Iranian and a South African government official,\u201d during 2004 and 2005.<\/p>\n

On Monday (24 June), David Maynier<\/a>, DA shadow minister of defence and military veterans, said that\u00a0Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane had informed him that Saloojee was no longer employed by her Department, following the expiry of his contract on 31 December 2012.<\/p>\n

Maynier said he was informed in a letter dated, 20 June 2013.<\/p>\n

The DA noted that an internal investigation conducted by MTN found that Ambassador Saloojee had received a loan of approximately US$200,000 from an employee of MTN, Chris Kilowan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, the final report of the internal investigation conducted by MTN, which was made public on 1 February 2013, found that no bribe was paid to Ambassador Saloojee.<\/p>\n

The DA further pointed out that the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) conducted its own internal investigation and produced a report, entitled Alleged Misconduct against a certain Ambassador Yusuf Saloojee, which was dated 28 September 2012.<\/p>\n

“We have to be sure that Ambassador Salooojee was not let off the hook by Dirco and given an easy way out when his contract expired on 31 December 2012,”\u00a0Maynier said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“First, Dirco\u2019s internal investigation was completed about four months before MTN\u2019s internal investigation,” he said.<\/p>\n

The shadow minister stressed that findings of MTN\u2019s internal investigation could therefore not have been included in the Dirco\u2019s internal investigation.<\/p>\n

According to the DA: the internal investigation, conducted by MTN, also revealed that the company had:<\/p>\n