TheNewsGuru

Tag: MTN

  • Termination of appointment: Court orders MTN to pay ex-Nigerian operations manager N4.8billion

    Termination of appointment: Court orders MTN to pay ex-Nigerian operations manager N4.8billion

    The National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), Akure Division, has ordered MTN Nigeria Communications Limited and MTN International, Mauritius, to pay its former Network Group Operations Manager, Mr Paul Odunewu, $13,419,728.54, £10,000 and N2,540,000 (totaling N4, 825,036,735.9) following the illegal termination of appointment by the telecoms organisation.

    Justice Oyejoju Oyewunmi made the order on Wednesday, September 27, 2017 following Odunewu’s suit challenging his 2006 termination and the deprivation of his entitlements including share options valued at $13,144,512.00.

    MTN Group Limited, South Africa; MTN Nigeria and MTN International, Mauritius were first, second and third defendants in the suit which lasted 10 years from the Lagos State High Court to the NICN.

    Justice Oyewunmi ordered that the sums be paid by the second and third defendants, “except the issue of costs which is to be paid by all the defendants.

    ” The judge ordered MTN to make the payments within 30 days following which the sums would appreciate at 21 percent interest per annum. In reaching judgment, the court agreed with the submissions of Odunewu’s counsel, Mr Kemi Balogun (SAN) that MTN unfairly imposed a restraint of trade on Odunewu, thus preventing him from working for a period.

    The judge upheld Mr Balogun’s submission that the evidence showed that Odunewu neither committed any serious, persistent breach of the provisions of the agreement or the company’s code, nor was ever summoned to a disciplinary committee or found guilty of any misconduct or non-performance.

    Justice Oyewunmi observed, among others, that the defendants failed to controvert the testimony of a former MTN Chief Executive Officer, Mr Adrian Wood, regarding the offers made to Odunewu which persuaded him to quit his job in The United Kingdom and join MTN. Odunewu, a UK-based chartered engineer, was employed by MTN Nigeria in 2001.

    He said MTN pleaded with him to return home from the UK and help the company to develop its telecommunications in Nigeria. He averred that he was promised, among others, a Share Option, a long-term incentive scheme being developed by MTN.

    Odunewu said when he complained that the Share Option was not contained in his offer letter, MTN persuaded him to accept the job, adding that he would be entitled to the shares after three years.

    Odunewu said he worked at MTN for over four years, and was responsible for the network’s outstanding achievements, which continues till date.

    The former manager said he was responsible for the company’s pre-paid and post-paid revenue, subscription, voucher management and real-time charging.

    Odunewu commenced the suit against the defendants in 2007 before the High Court of Lagos State, but in 2012, it was transferred to and began afresh at NICN which had exclusive jurisdiction. Trial commenced on January 29, 2014.

     

  • Airstrike kills 22 insurgents in northern Afghanistan

    As many as 22 armed insurgents have been confirmed dead after army helicopters targeted Taliban oppositions in Afghanistan’s northern Badakhshan province, Bakhtar news agency reported on Thursday.

    The helicopter gunships, according to the state-run news agency, pounded Taliban hideouts in parts of Tagab district late Wednesday, killing 22 insurgents on the ground and injuring several others.

    Taliban militants who are active in parts of the mountainous Badakhshan province over the past few years haven’t commented.

     

  • NIWBQR ranks Nigerian mobile wireless networks, Smile tops QoS

    NIWBQR ranks Nigerian mobile wireless networks, Smile tops QoS

    The National Independent Wireless Broadband Quality Reporting (NIWBQR) which measures the quality of customers’ experience in mobile wireless networks in Nigeria has ranked Smile Communications first in terms of quality of service offered to customers in the month of June along a specific route in Lagos State.

    The report commissioned by Enextgen Wireless Ltd, ranked MTN second; Ntel third; Globacom fourth; and E-stream fifth based on its four key performance indicators (KPIs).

    The ranking was performed by processing Connection Drop rate, Connection Setup failure rate, Throughput and Latency, and assigning figures of merit based on the results.

    Connection Drop rate carries half of the weight (50%). Connection Setup Failure rate carries 20%, Throughput carries 15% and Latency carries 15%.

    According to NIWBQR, Globacom has the best coverage and throughput. It ranked fourth as a result of very high connection setup failure rate, with most of the failures clustered in a particular area along the evaluated route.

    Smile is ranked first due to its low connection drop rate and consistent throughput along the evaluated route.

    MTN does not experience any connection setup failure, however the Connection Drop rate is high.

    Ntel has relatively low connection setup failure rate (1.8%) but available throughput along the evaluated route is consistently low.

    E-stream has uniformly low throughput and substantial connection failures and drops.

    NIWBQR said that “We show a chart of mobility performance defect with the lowest number corresponding to the best performance. This is due to the fact that none of the networks is without substantial performance defect.

    Our goal is to improve the quality of experience of mobile broadband wireless subscribers by identifying sub-optimal performance based on the quality of RF deployment and helping service providers with solutions”

     

  • Unsolicited messages on MTN network violation of subscriber’s right – A’Court

    Unsolicited messages on MTN network violation of subscriber’s right – A’Court

    Granting unknown persons and organisations access to a subscriber’s telephone line by MTN for the purpose of sending unsolicited messages to the line is a violation of the subscriber’s right to privacy, the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has ruled.

    A three-man bench of the Court of Appeal led by Justice Tinuade Akomolafe-Wilson, unanimously held in its judgment that the said MTN’s act was a violation of the subscriber’s right to privacy guaranteed under section 37 of the 1999 Constitution.

    Justice Emmanuel Agim, who prepared the lead judgment of the Court of Appeal, held that the innumerable text messages sent without the consent of the subscriber was a violation of the subscriber’s fundamental right to privacy of his telephone conversations, correspondence, his person, telephone line and telephone message inbox.

    Justice Agim held, “By giving those unknown persons and organisations access to the respondent’s MTN GSM phone number, to send text messages into it, the appellant violated the respondent’s fundamental right to privacy guaranteed by section 37 of the Constitution which includes the right to the privacy of a person’s telephone line.

    “The said section 37 of the 1999 Constitution provides that, ‘The privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations and telegraphic conversations is hereby guaranteed and protected’.

    “The innumerable text messages without his consent at all times is a violation of his fundamental right to the privacy of his telephone conversations, correspondence and his person and telephone line and telephone message inbox.”

    Justice Agim also held that MTN’s act violated Rule 14(1)(b), (2) and (3) of the General Consumer Code of Practice Rules and the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations 2007, both of which were regulations made on the strength of section 70 of the Communications Act.

    The two regulations, according to Justice Agim, “require the appellant (MTN) to maintain a directory enquiry facility containing information of all its subscribers in Nigeria and allow access to same by third parties but subject to the prior notification of the subscriber”.

    Justice Akomolafe-Wilson who head the court’s three man-panel and the another member, Justice Olabisi Ige, agreed with the lead judgment delivered by Justice Agim.

    The Court of Appeal in Abuja delivered the judgment on May 12, 2017, but its copy was made available to our correspondent on Sunday.

     

  • Broadband: ICT stakeholders call for National Fibre provider

    Broadband: ICT stakeholders call for National Fibre provider

    Stakeholders in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector have called for a National Broadband Fibre provider to further deepen broadband penetration in the country.

    The stakeholders made the call at the Broadband Summit 2017 organized by BusinessDay Media Ltd in Lagos on Friday.

    The Chief Executive Officer of Spectranet, Mr David Venn said that there was the need for the National Broadband Fibre provider so that Nigerians would benefit from the broadband revolution.

    Venn said that voice calls through mobile phone had changed everything but the next phase was broadband.

    He said that broadband would have greater impact on the lives of Nigerians, hence the need to ensure it got to every part of the country.

    According to him, the challenges hindering broadband penetration should be addressed.

    “Nigeria needs a National Broadband Fibre provider. There is need for carriers to be able to get broadband to the hinterlands.

    “The cost of international bandwidth has changed demand for broadband in the last two years.

    “The Nigerian Communications Commission must sanitise the sector of anti-competitive issues,” he said.

    The Managing Director of Vodacom Business Nigeria, Mr Lanre Kolade said that the economy was biting hard on all the operators.

    Kolade said that the Tier II Telecommunications operators were struggling to survive.

    He said that there was need for a level playing field as such would stop anti-competition in the sector.

    According to him, the Tier I operators cannot be everywhere hence, the need for the smaller operators to go to the smaller areas and deploy business strategies that will work.

    “For this to happen, anti-competition should be addressed.

    “To deepen broadband penetration, there should be data centres across the country so that the rate at which our traffic goes outside Nigeria will reduce,” he said.

    The Chief Transformation Officer of MTN Nigeria, Mr Bayo Adekanmbi, said that there was high demand of broadband by Nigerians; but no adequate infrastructure to deliver high speed internet to them.

    Adekanmbi said that the nature of broadband was holistically different as it was more of a long term project as the issue of cost was critical.

    He said that infrastructure to deliver broadband should not be taxed; to ensure delivery to last mile at an affordable cost.

    The Chief Executive Officer of Ntel, Mr Kamar Abass said that to deepen broadband penetration, the industry should consider infrastructure sharing as active engagement on it was still lacking.

    Abass said that there was the need for more spectrums to deliver broadband to Nigeria.

    The Chief Executive Officer of MainOne, Ms Funke Opeke said that broadband was an enabler of economic growth.

    Opeke however said that recession had changed the dynamics of the broadband industry.

    She said that the industry depended on importation of its infrastructure and there had been the challenge of foreign exchange.

    According to her, the country must pull itself out of oil dependency and broadband is the step toward economy recovery.

    “There is need to know we can create more power houses like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Alibaba, among other to develop the economy,” she said.

     

  • Samsung is the number one most admired brand in Africa, report says

    Samsung has emerged as the number one most admired brand in Africa, according to Brand Africa’s 2016/17 list of Most Admired Brands in Africa.

    The company grew its brand value by 13 percent; a progress that can be credited to Samsung’s expedient recall and customer service solutions, according to CNN.

    “Slow growth and challenging economic conditions negatively affected the perception of African brands in 2016,” CNN stated.

    Only 16 African brands made the latest list of the Brand Africa’s 2016/17 list of Most Admired Brands in Africa, compared to 23 in 2015; and only two are in the top 20.

    Brand Africa, which has annually ranked brands that consumers admire since 2011, has compiled the list from more than 11,000 brand mentions on a mobile survey conducted in 19 countries. This collectively represents 74 percent of the continent’s population.

    Ranked at number nine, South Africa based telecom MTN is the only African brand in the top 10. Just last year it was ranked number one, but Brand Africa attributes legal challenges for its fall.

    “The halo around MTN in the last two, three years, are the challenges that it had in Nigeria both in terms of not disconnecting consumers, some who were not active anymore,” says the founder of Brand Africa, Thebe Ikalafeng.

    “Also challenges about moving their profits around the continent, around importing them.

    “So all those challenges really had a massive impact on the perception on the brand.

    “And of course it also had some leadership challenges and leadership changes,” the Brand Africa founder surmised.

    In contrast, despite the crisis behind Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7, the South Korean giant has emerged as the number one most admired brand in Africa.

    The company grew its brand value by 13 percent. This progress can be credited to Samsung’s expedient recall and customer service solutions.

    “The most important thing that they did is how responsive they were when the crisis hit them,” says Ikalafeng.

    “They were available, they were responsive, and they gave no excuses,” Ikalafeng added.

    Following Samsung, Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Apple, LG, Nokia and Toyota ranked the highest among the most-admired brands in Africa.

    French apparel company Lacoste was the most resurgent brand, reaching the 42nd position from 94th in 2015, followed by Mirinda that jumped to 41st from the 88th spot.

    According to Brand Africa, despite vibrant political and social movements, as well as entrepreneurial energy on the continent, Africans are behind at creating brands fast enough to face global brands.

    In fact, Europe has 42 brands in the Top 100, 25 from US and 17 in Asia, with Africa in last place with only 16 brands that made it to the list.

    According to Ikalafeng, governments on the continent are not creating enabling policies adequately to help businesses thrive.

    Brand Africa reports that Africa has an estimated 0.6 percent share of trademarks filed globally and invests less than one percent of GDP in research.

    “If you’re not researching, how are you going to find out the needs? How are you going to create new solutions and new products?” Ikalafeng queried.

    “If you look at the big countries, the Chinas, the Americas, and all those, they really invest a lot in trade, in building their trademarks. Now if you don’t own your trademark, somebody else will own it”.

    Brand Africa reports that without investment in research and owning trademarks, international companies will top the brand leadership and dictate the trends. And therefore, right now is more crucial than ever for Africans to rise and build Made in Africa brands.

     

     

    CNN

     

  • MTN lands in fresh trouble, fined $8.5m

    MTN lands in fresh trouble, fined $8.5m

    Rwanda’s telecom industry regulator has fined MTN Rwanda, a division of South Africa’s MTN Group, 7 billion francs (8.5 million dollars) for running its IT services outside the country in breach of its licence.

    The regulator said in a ruling posted on its website in Kigali that MTN Rwanda was hosting its IT services hub in Uganda, which it had prohibited. “They are punished for relocating their IT services outside Rwanda, and this was deliberate,’’ Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority Spokesman Anthony Kulamba said.

    MTN Group said it had also received a notification about the fine. “MTN has been engaging with the regulator on this matter over the past four months.

    “MTN Rwanda is currently studying the official notification and will continue to engage with the regulator on this matter,” it said in a statement. In 2016, the company, which operates in 20 countries, set aside 600 million dollars to pay a fine imposed by the Nigerian government through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for not disconnecting unregistered SIM cards.

    It paid N30 billion (95.24 million dollars) of the amount in March. Other telecoms companies operating in Rwanda are Tigo, a unit of Millicom and Airtel Rwanda, a unit of India’s Bharti Airtel.

  • MTN sacks 280 workers

    MTN sacks 280 workers

    …Says we disengaged them to delve into full Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and digital operation

    Telecommunications giant, MTN has disengaged 280 of its employees in Nigeria​.

    ​Staff​ affected include some 200 permanent employees and about 80 contract staff across various cadres, ranging from new graduates to senior managers‎​.

    ​It was gathered that workers were given a​ ​severance of 75% of their gross monthly income multiplied by the number of years with the company.

    “Given that the company is about 16 years old in Nigeria, the severance package brought pain and discontent among the affected staff,” ​a source told newsmen in Lagos.

    “With the payoff structure, senior managers with 15 years of service were left with about N15 million. Most of the staff got less than N5 million.”

     

    However, responding to why it took the decision, the company said it disengaged the 280 workers because it wanted to delve into full Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and digital operations.

    An official who pleaded anonymity told newsmen in Lagos on Monday, said that the company would inject another group of new employees, capable of delivering on it new goals.

    The source said that the disengagement was necessary because of the changing dynamics of the telecommunications industry in recent time.

    The source said that MTN had in March informed its staff that it would disengage some of them.

    The source said that the service provider introduced the Voluntary Severance Scheme (VSS), urging staff to apply for voluntary disengagement.

    According to the source, only 200 workers applied for the VSS, while 80 were given compulsory disengagement.

    The source added that those affected were those who had worked for five years and above in the company.

    The source said that the affected workers were given a severance pay of 75 per cent of their gross monthly income, multiplied by the number of years they had worked with the company.

    “Those who decided to leave under the VSS were paid the equivalent of their three weeks gross salary for every year they worked with MTN.

    “What it means is that if one worked in MTN for five years, one would be paid three weeks of the person’s gross salary times five,” the source said.

    According to the source, all 280 staff were paid their benefits.

     

     

  • Non-listing of MTN shares in 2017 will affect NSE– Experts

    Some financial experts have warned that the postponement of the listing of MTN shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) will slow down the listing of other multinationals.

    They told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the Federal Government must do everything possible within its powers to ensure the listing of the company’s shares on the NSE in 2017.

    The operators spoke against the backdrop of a statement by the MTN Group Ltd that it may put off plans to list its Nigerian operation until 2018, as it strived to resolve a regulatory dispute.

    Mr Phuthuma Nhleko, MTN Chairman and Acting Chief Executive Officer, was quoted as saying at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that the listing may be within the 12 to 18-month period.

    TheNewsGuru reports that MTN Nigeria in June 2016, said that it would list its shares on the nation’s bourse in 2017, after being fined for breaching the know-your-customer rules set by the National Communications Commission (NCC).

    Dr Uche Uwaleke, Head, Banking and Finance Department, Nasarawa State University, Keffi stated that government should provide further fiscal incentives, in addition to the reduced charges for MTN.

    Uwaleke said that putting off the planned listing till 2018 would not mean well for the stock market as other companies that may be considering a similar move could also put such plans on hold.

    “If MTN did not push ahead with the plan, other telecom firms like Etisalat and Airtel, including firms in the Oil and Power sectors, currently being wooed by the NSE may develop cold feet.

    “They can equally cite the same unfavorable economic conditions as their reason.

    “This will not augur well for the stock market. Currently, the market lacks depth and is over-concentrated with just about four companies accounting for over 60 per cent of the equities’ market capitalisation.

    So, the presence of MTN and these other companies will help to deepen the market and make it more attractive to local and foreign investors,’’ he added.

    Uwaleke said that the company’s plan to list was part of its understanding with the Federal Government over the huge fine imposed on it.

    “MTN in 2016 had make known its plan to list on the NSE as part of an understanding it had with the federal government over a huge fine imposed on the company.

    “The development led to the fine being slashed considerably by the government.

    “The telecom giant had provided a caveat to the effect that whether or not it lists in 2017 would depend on market conditions.

    “With the economy still in the woods, illegal charges and legal hurdles to grapple with, the company appears disposed to invoke the caveat as justification for putting off the planned listing till 2018,” Uwaleke said.

    He noted that government should spare no effort to get MTN to list on the NSE in 2017, even if it entailed providing further fiscal incentives, in addition to the reduced fine.

    Similarly, Malam Garba Kurfi, the Chief Executive Officer, APT Funds and Securities Ltd, said that Nigeria must not scare MTN away from the country with huge fines.

    Kurfi said that the listing of MTN shares would attract other big companies to the exchange and at the same time deepen the depth of the market.

    He stated that government should work toward listing all its privatised entities on the NSE, to boost activities and increase the number of tradable products.