By Our Reporters
To secure the President’s no objection to the latest assault on MTN Uganda, an intelligence report was presented and its contents eloquently made out a case that some key officials of the sales and marketing teams were using the telecom promotional activities and budget to undermine Sevo’s political authority as the Chief Executive of Uganda. The report elaborated this was happening at two levels one having to do with influential opposition leader Bobi Wine Kyagulanyi Sentamu and the other with a recent working visit MTN officials made to Rwanda. The big man was informed that recently senior MTN executives from the Sales & Marketing department travelled to Rwanda ostensibly for official business and that while there, they met Kigali officials and handed over contents derived from criminally intercepted communications. The intercepted communications are said to have contained confidential discussions of key Uganda government officials and that these were handed over to facilitate broader espionage operations aimed at knowing GoU plans. Sources say that because the Ugandan authorities had always been suspicious of the activities of Olivier Prentout, a French national who has been working as Chief Marketing Officer for MTN, there was always surveillance around him. So even on this occasion he was under watch and the alleged Rwandan liaisons only escalated anxiety Ugandan intelligence always had towards him. As disclosed in both MTN and police media releases, Prentout was on Saturday 19th January intercepted by security at Entebbe Airport and deported as he returned from a foreign trip abroad. Both statements don’t disclose which country but the police statement talks of plans to “strengthen screening procedures at all border points.” The police statement also chest thumps about successful efforts to thwart the duo’s plans to “compromise our national security.” Then yesterday Monday, MTN Uganda Head of Sales & Distribution Annie Bilenge Tabura, a Rwandan expatriate who closely worked with Prentout, too was harvested by security operatives as she arrived at MTN Kololo offices. In a carefully worded four paragraph statement sent to us by publicist Justina Ntabgoba, MTN vowed continued commitment to respecting and observing Ugandan laws notwithstanding the arrests which we first reported about Monday evening. According to Force Deputy PRO Polly Namaye, Police worked with Immigration officials to apprehend the duo. Namaye said the duo was using their employment status in Uganda to plan mischief to breach Uganda’s national security. She accused them of engagement in “suspicious activities” without elaborating what these were. A report by Softpower news website, run by former State House operative Sarah Kagingo, indicates that the apprehension of the two might after all just be a tip of the iceberg. Quoting anonymous sources, the website says more officials are to be pursued including CEO Wim Vanhelleputte and legal GM Anthony Katamba. The other official who has been summoned along with Katamba and Wim is MTN Mobile Financial Services Manager Elsa Muzzolin who is being investigated for inciting violence in relation to introduction of the Mobile Money and OTT tax on social media users. The investigations into the trio will be conducted by detectives from Kibuli-based CIID and Kireka-based SIU.
ENTER BOBI WINE
Reliable sources have revealed to Mulengera news website that in several intelligence briefs Prentout was portrayed as an expatriate who is very contemptuous of the President and his NRM government. And that consequently he used his position as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) with a lot of budget under his control to acquiesce to activities aimed at sabotaging the Museveni government. There is anger that the two deported MTN officials were complicit in the demonstrations Bobi Wine led denouncing OTT and mobile money taxes introduced mid last year by the GoU despite well demonstrated public anger. The result was that an unusually high number of MPs, including from NRM, voted against the President’s wish regarding especially the mobile money tax. Whereas Museveni opted to reduce the unpopular tax from 1% to 0.5%, many MPs even in his own party voted to scrap it to zero. Museveni, who is used to sweeping victories on the floor of Parliament, won with a slim margin and consequently, a furious GCW Ruth Nankabirwa threatened disciplinary action against NRM MPs that voted for a position Mr. Wine had been popularizing through his street demonstrations. This is something sources say greatly irked Museveni, a man not used to being challenged especially by anyone inside his party. The narrative in the intelligence community was that the two deported officials used financial resources at their disposal to ensure that voices opposed to the new taxes carried the day within Parliament, the population and the academia. Indeed Museveni has been made to believe that even initial reports from URA and financial ministry technocrats showing that the MM and OTT tax were counterproductive were partly influenced by the two deported MTN officials using huge budgets at their disposal. The ongoing investigations are meant to establish whether Katamba and Wim, two powerful officials at MTN, did enough to constrain these activities. Besides being accused of complicity in Mr. Wine’s street demos, Prentout was also reported to the H.E. as someone who used his position to generously sponsor a musical concert in Jinja to which Bobi had been invited along with his fire base crew to perform as guest artistes. In the end the concert didn’t take place after police violently broke up the gathering and arrested some of the fire base crew members in Jinja. Mr. Wine used what he called “ghetto tricks” to escape back to Kampala. In the days that followed, the matter was debated on the floor of Parliament where Speaker Kadaga led MPs in unanimous condemnation of the State high handedness. Security Minister Elly Tumwine, who tried to justify the violent crackdown on the Jinja concert, suffered the wrath of Kadaga who was to later permit Bobi to perform at MPs’ end of year party. Museveni kept quiet but remained angry and didn’t like the guts with which MPs united in condemning the State regarding the Jinja concert. The Parliamentary resolution calling on Police to stop disrupting Mr. Wine’s concerts was clearly ignored and more brutal force was subsequently at display as more concerts were being broken up including the one at One Love Beach Busabala on Boxing Day 26th December. The men in uniform kept saying this is order from above.
THE M7 CONTEXT
All this hostility towards MTN is coming up at a time the giant telecom faces growing pressure from the President to open up and become more accountable. Last November, the Museveni-chaired cabinet passed the new Broadband Policy requiring MTN to invest up to $200m in network upgrade to ensure the entire country is saturated with a 4G network to ensure fast internet availability. The MTN is also required to list on the stock exchange market so that native Ugandans can acquire up to 30% in the company, something MTN executives are very uncomfortable with because of the resultant scrutiny. They also have no certainty regarding their operational license. The 60 days temporary license they had been given expired on Sunday 20th January and they are now operating on temporary permit which isn’t good for the economy because it diminishes confidence of other would-be investors coming here. This is so because the President has personally put his foot on the ground insisting MTN must pay $100m for their 10 year license renewal as opposed to mere $58m they are offering. ICT Minister Frank Tumwebaze had proposed they pay $100m but for a longer period than just 10 years UCC is offering them, something Museveni is yet to publicly warm up to. Mulengera news understands that in standing up to MTN impunity, the President is being emboldened by his incorruptible Attorney General William Byaruhanga who insists that the carrot approach with MTN must end because the telecom has for long milked the Ugandan economy without adequately investing in it.
WAY FORWARD
As Katamba and Wim anxiously await interrogation at CIID headquarters Kibuli, there is nervousness at Group headquarters in South Africa regarding plans Museveni might be having up his sleeve. The big men in South Africa have lately resorted to imploring SA President Cyril Ramaphosa to use his big brother leverage and engage Museveni to once again have a soft spot for MTN Uganda. We are told that as Ramaphosa prepared for the World Economic Forum in Davos, he spoke with Museveni via telephone and the two agreed to discuss more on the sidelines of the meeting. Reliable State House sources say Museveni realizes the essentiality of MTN (being the biggest tax payer to URA besides employing many people) and wouldn’t want them to exit the Ugandan market. But he wants to use the current vulnerability resulting from key staff’ subversive activities to squeeze generous concessions from Ramaphosa both for the Ugandan economy and for his politics. “He will be demanding for immediate re-alignment in the Uganda Division whereby the leadership at MTN Uganda must change immediately and a new team is sent. Gratefully that is something Ramaphosa isn’t opposed to because even supervisors in SA feel the team in Uganda can do better than they are doing currently. We shall end up with something similar to Daily Monitor where the Onyango Obbos had to be exiled to Nairobi at the insistence of the Museveni government. Just like with the Aga Khan, Mzee knows that Ramaphosa is a businessman who will do anything not to lose out on the potential the Ugandan market presents for his MTN Group,” said a knowledgeable source.
