{"id":44836,"date":"2013-08-27T15:06:43","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T13:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=44836"},"modified":"2013-08-28T09:22:55","modified_gmt":"2013-08-28T07:22:55","slug":"alcatel-wades-into-mtn-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/44836\/alcatel-wades-into-mtn-debacle\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcatel wades into MTN debacle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alcatel One Touch<\/a> has defended itself against allegations that it\u00a0contravened MTN<\/a>‘s\u00a0procurement\u00a0policy and supplied the operator with inferior products.<\/p>\n

Alcatel One Touch\u00a0designs, manufactures and markets an expanding portfolio of mobile and Internet products.<\/p>\n

An article published in Business Day on 23 August 2013,\u00a0implicated Alcatel One Touch as a supplier of modems that contravened MTN’s procurement policy – part of a reason for the investigation of former GM for branded retail channel,\u00a0Eleanor Potter, launched in 2012.<\/p>\n

Potter has since left MTN.<\/p>\n

According to BusinessDay, the investigation was over a R120 million tender irregularity, while Potter also stood accused of putting data modems that were \u201cagainst network capabilities\u201d and \u201chad failed laboratory tests\u201d, to market.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been alleged that Ms (Mitrovich) Potter directed the purchase of laptop computers to a vendor that lost out on the quotation process. The vendor did not have a contract with MTN,\u201d read\u00a0documents seen by Business Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn estimated amount of R120 million was spent on the vendor in question as opposed to the R8 million spent on the approved and contracted vendor within the same period.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter also alleged that Potter engaged Alcatel with the view of purchasing data modems in contravention of MTN\u2019s procurement policy.<\/p>\n

Alcatel One Touch\u00a0country manager for Southern Africa, Ernst Wittmann<\/a>, however, denies such allegations:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to place on record that all modem products referred to in the previous article were supplied based on the requirements of MTN SA at that time, and we did not contravene the MTN procurements policy in any way.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In relation to the statement that data modems received \u201cunfavourable laboratory test results and against network capabilities, Wittmann said: “Before any products are sold to any network operator and eventually to the end consumer, stringent network tests are conducted in the specific network test labs to ensure favourable network compliance.”<\/p>\n

He said this in-depth process takes many months before the product is available in store.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce this is completed, an official type approval certificate is issued to Alcatel One Touch\u00a0before production and shipping takes place. All certificates are available for your perusal should you wish to see them\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The group said it continues to uphold its mandate to make mobile technology accessible to all and will apply best practice in all its business dealings to ensure that consumers receive products that are compliant to the necessary standards and of the best quality.<\/p>\n

Earlier, MTN said in a statement of its own:<\/p>\n

\u201cMTN confirms that certain allegations were made against Eleanor Potter, in 2012. As with any other allegation, the company took these seriously and accordingly investigated during the course of last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe investigation concluded that the allegations were unfounded.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MTN has been beset by internal scandal over the past several months, with the group suspending\u00a0its chief corporate services officer in South Africa,\u00a0Robert Madzonga<\/a>, for\u00a0allegedly\u00a0authorizing\u00a0R12.3 million in questionable payments to a legal friend.<\/p>\n

And in July, the world\u2019s sixth-largest mobile company\u00a0announced that group chief financial officer and executive financial director,\u00a0Nazir Patel<\/a>\u00a0had resigned amid an internal investigation.<\/p>\n

More on MTN<\/h3>\n

Another day, another MTN scandal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0MTN suspends another executive<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN CEO warns \u201cdestructive\u201d rivals<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Why MTN CFO Nazir Patel resigned<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN reshuffles leadership in key markets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN moves to assure investors over CFO<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN slides on CFO resignation<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN executive resigns amid controversy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alcatel One Touch has defended itself against allegations that it contravened MTN’s procurement policy and supplied the operator with inferior products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":7402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[6531,26,28,2503,3293],"class_list":["post-44836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-alcatel-one-touch","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-nazir-patel","tag-robert-madzonga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44836","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44836"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44877,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44836\/revisions\/44877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}