CBN challenging our Nigerian listing process, says MTN

October 29

11:46 2018

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MTN Group, the biggest telecommunication services company on the African continent, has successfully completed its listing on the Ghana Stock Exchange.

In its quarterly report for the quarter ended on September 30, 2018, and released on Monday, the telco said its listing process in Nigeria is currently facing challenges from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

“We successfully completed the listing of MTN Ghana. MTN Nigeria’s plans to list have been challenged by the
recent Central Bank of Nigeria and Attorney General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria matters,” MTN said in the report seen by TheCable.

“MTN remains committed to the listing in Nigeria and work continues in this regard. In the quarter, the group engaged extensively with authorities in Nigeria to deal with the matters they raised.”

During the quarter, the CBN alleged improper dividend repatriations by MTN Nigeria between 2007 and 2015 of $8.1 billion while the AGF alleged unpaid taxes on foreign payments and imports of approximately $2 billion.

MTN Nigeria has continued to deny these allegations and claims, stating that it remained resolute that it had not committed any offences and will continue to defend this position vigorously.

DESPITE SANCTION, MTN SOARS IN NIGERIA

According to the report, “MTN Nigeria had an excellent quarter, increasing service revenue by 17.4% YoY, towards the upper end of our medium-term target for Nigeria of double-digit growth”.

“This was led by a 52,5% increase in data revenue and 21.5% increase in outgoing voice revenue. Data revenue growth was supported by an increase in active data subscribers as well as more smartphones on our network, the result of various CVM and OEM-partnership initiatives.

“Digital revenue declined by 28,5% following the continued optimisation of our value-added services (VAS) business. We completed the final element of this optimisation, suspending auto-renewal of subscriptions, in mid-September which means that digital revenue will continue to be impacted by lower VAS revenue in the fourth quarter, after which we expect it to stabilise.”

MTN Nigeria reported 17.2 million active data subscribers, up 15.1 percent quarter-on-quarter, and 2.5 million mobile money customers, up 12.4 percent QoQ.