Three years after facing a record-breaking $5.2 billion fine in Nigeria, South Africa’s telecommunications giant, MTN, has again been fined by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the tune of $8.134 billion over foreign exchange.
Others are N2.4bn fine on Standard Chartered, N1.8bn on Stanbic IBTC, N1.2bn on Citibank, N0.25bn on Diamond Bank. All to also refund a total of $8.134bn for breaching Nigeria’s forex regulations on MTN’s illegal capital repatriation.
In a letter written from the office of the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefile, the banks – Standard Chartered Bank (StanChart), Stanbic IBTC Limited (Stanbic), Citibank and Diamond Bank Plc – were used by MTN to import the sum of $402.5 million between 2001 and 2006 to fund its investments in Nigeria by way of inter-company loans and equity investments.
According to the CBN, MTN never obtained CCIs when it started doing business in Nigerian in 2001.
Yet, the company went ahead to covert the $402.5 million into preference shares and CCIs were issued by StanChart, Citibank and Diamond Bank respectively, to enable the MTN Nigerian subsidiary to remit monies to its parent company in South Africa to the tune $8.134 billion.
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