MTN Group Accused Of Sneaking Nearly $14 Billion Out Of Nigeria

There’s blood in the water. Nigerian lawmakers are flexing their might with a confidence rarely seen in decades past— at least as far as taking large corporates to task for flouting regulations.

According to some media reports the Nigerian Senate has received a motion from one of its members to investigate MTN Nigeria’s potential collusion with leading commercial banks to facilitate the illegal repatriation the funds over the last ten years. The MTN Group is being accused of sneaking just under $14 billion out of the Nigerian market, and despite MTN’s official declarations of innocence, lawmakers have vowed to investigate the matter thoroughly. And so MTN’s extended season of reckoning continues.

Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up, net neutrality activists around the world are celebrating the USA handing over internet control to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) over the weekend. This happened in the wake of a US federal judge denying a last-ditch request made by Republican Senator Ted Cruz and other politicians for an injunction to try and prevent the scheduled handoff taking place over the weekend. Tune in for more on that story as well as all the week’s leading headlines from across Africa and beyond.

First published in AfricanTechRoundup.com.

 

#FreeBasicsMustFall

Facebook is still smarting from having Free Basics kicked out of India. Clearly no one was more upset by India’s emphatic rejection of Mark Zuckerberg’s walled garden project than venture capitalist and Facebook board member, Marc Andreessen, who took to Twitter last week to express his frustration at the country’s decision— a move that was met by global outrage.

Nevertheless, we have Andreessen to thank for inspiring our discussion on this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-up, and  re-igniting the debate around net neutrality, and whether companies like Facebook ought to be supported in their efforts to provide ‘internet lite’ to the world’s poorest who would not otherwise access the web at all.

Also in this week’s episode, you can also look forward to hearing what technology trends are tickling the fancy of a chap named Siyabulela Xuza. He’s a young engineering graduate from Harvard, who got his start in science very young, experimenting with rocket fuel in his mother’s kitchen in a little rural town in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

These days, he’s more famous for his prowess in the field of energy engineering— which has won him numerous awards and endowments from around the world, so much so that he’s even had a planet named after him, and been appointed brand ambassador for Total South Africa.

Check out the full chat I had with Siya, along with Total’s GM for the company’s Marketing Services Competency Centre, Dr Jerry Gule:

Nest.vc Launches In Africa

Everyone loves a good love story.  Especially when things go according to plan: start-up founder meets venture capitalist with deep pockets, tons of real-world experience, great contacts and of course, a tried and tested system for navigating to success.

For most African tech startups who have been financed by one of Africa’s leading venture capital funds, this idyllic scenario couldn’t be further from reality.

This week, the folks at Hong Kong’s only private, full service startup accelerator, Nest, have granted the African Tech Round-up an exclusive to break the news of their plans to ride into Africa’s startup funding scene like a knight in shining armour to “make an impact” by sweeping pretty damsels (aka promising startups) off their feet.

Listen in to hear straight from Nest’s Africa Managing Partner, Aaron Fu, what he and his team plan to offer investable prospects on the continent (starting with Kenya) by way of finance, expertise and other key elements of startup support.

Also in this week’s show– all the week’s digital, tech and innovation news from across Africa:

• A quick update from my co-host, Tefo Mohapi, on the official launch of Facebook Africa’s office in Johannesburg,
• Details on the far-reaching consequences of the embarrassing security breach at controversial spyware company Hacking Team,
• Worrying news on internet security laws being proposed by the Kenyan government,
• The low-low on a multi-million dollar locomotive scandal in South Africa, and
• The latest on bitcoin platform BitX’s foray into the Nigerian market.