Peter Egwuatu

Operators in the financial industry have blamed the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Nigerian Investment Promotion Council,NIPC ,Nigerian Communication Commission, NCC and other regulators who are suppose to issue clearance and supervise MTN Nigeria on the controversial Certificate of Capital Importation, CCI after the authorities were dully notified of capital import.

The operators argued that rather than the senate tackle those government authorities,it went ahead to backlash MTN who did what they were suppose to do before repatriating their fund.

Commenting on the issue, Bisi Ogunwale, Financial Management Consultant

“Just when we thought we were getting undue interference from the government on the way businesses are run, the National Assembly, precisely, the upper chamber of the national assembly, precisely on the 27th of September, Senator Dino Melaye brought a case against MTN on the floor of the Senate in the National Assembly.”

“The issue here for me is, first, what is the Senate out to achieve and then why are they doing what they are doing. I have looked at everything they have brought forward and the issue of the fact that MTN did not get CCI before repatriating money. What funds are we talking about? MTN claims they were repatriating funds that were meant to be profit or dividend being paid on importation of capital they’ve done, I don’t see anything wrong in what they’ve done.”

On who should be investigated over this matter, Ogunwale said”During the Senate sitting, president of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, Jim Obazie, said that the company hasn’t done anything wrong in what they did. If there’s anything for them (Senate) to investigate, it should be the regulatory bodies that are responsible for this that should be the one that the Senate should be looking at.

What the National Assembly and even the Executive arm of the government should be looking at is; how does this entire saga being created around MTN help business and investments in the country. I do not think we are speaking the right word to the investment world if we are treating MTN the way we treat them currently as a result of all these issues that we are bringing around this. It doesn’t speak well of us as a country and it does not look as we are serious to attract those foreign investments that we are looking for.”

Continuing he said “The Nigerian Investment Promotion Council Act and Foreign Exchange Monitoring and Miscellaneous provision Act says, very clearly; “A foreign investor in an enterprise to which this Act applies shall be guaranteed unconditional transfer-ability of funds through any authorised dealer in freely convertible currency of (a) dividend and profits (net of all taxes) attributable to that particular investment”.

“The CBN provides that any enterprise or organisation that wants to get external funding in form of investment or debt into their business locally, must obtain Certificate of Capital Importation, which is to be issued 24 hours after the money has come into the country.

I had 10years experience of working in the banking industry and I had the opportunity of doing so many transactions around CCI. There was not one that we were able to get CCI out of CBN in that 24 hours.

“What normally happens is, there’s an approval process that CBN allows the people bringing in funds to be able to do the transactions they want to do and then the transactions go on like that. I do not want to think that MTN in anyway have done anything wrong in this process because first, they would have applied through their banks to the CBN and then, an approval must have been given before those funds came.

CCI is just basically a certificate, a paper, if I can use that word, which says X Company is bringing an X amount of money into the country, the date its coming, the rate at which the money is being converted to the local currency and then the actual amount that is being converted to the local currency. This is then signed by the CBN, it doesn’t say more than that.

MTN has invested over the last 14-15 years over $16 billion in the country. I want to believe there are CCI’s for all the funds brought into the country” he declared.

In his own part, Opeyemi Bamidele, Economist at Pan Atlantic University said

“We know that MTN invested in Nigeria to get a telecoms license. We know that when you (company) invests in Nigeria under our laws, you (company) is required to obtain a CCI. One of the benefits of recording it through that certificate when you invest, is that when you (company) now want to remit your profit out of Nigeria, then you have a legal basis to remit to transfer or remit your profit/dividends out of Nigeria.

“I do believe that this is beginning to look like purely a procedural argument, doesn’t appear that there’s any doubt that MTN actually imported capital into Nigeria and therefore, it seems to me that all this is about MTN remitting its profit out of Nigeria from MTN Nigeria, a portion of its profit that is due to its parent company MTN in South Africa. That on the basis of common sense and investment laws will not be an illegal activity.

It looks like from what I’ve listened to before the Senate that this is a purely procedural argument about whether a CCI was obtained within 24 hours of importation of the capital into the country or over a longer period. My suspicion is that, if it then becomes a purely procedural argument, it may be much ado about nothing because the reality is that the four banks involved appear to be credible banks.”

While commenting on who should be rightly investigated, Agbaje said”

This was not a matter that should have gone before the Senate. If there was a concern about improper capital importation or remittances out of Nigeria, there are three regulators that should have been involved. First of all, the Central Bank, because it regulates the banks who are accused of transferring money; the NCC (the regulator for MTN), if MTN had done anything wrong; and then the NIPC, which is the one that is in charge of investments into Nigeria.

If there was a legitimate concern, the first thing was to establish the facts through the mentioned regulators and then if those facts revealed wrong doing, then it could’ve been escalated to the Senate or indeed to a prosecutor – maybe the Minister of Justice or the Attorney General as well. From all that I’ve seen so far, this appears to me as something born out of ignorance and perhaps, a little bit of mischief.”

Continuing, he said” It’s clear that the relationship between Nigeria and MTN until this year, perhaps, has been a very mutually beneficial relationship. The company has invested billions of dollars in the country – paid $285million for a digital mobile license, invested significantly and became the country’s largest telecoms carrier (about 46% of the market share). The Nigerian government has gained and clearly the company has benefited as well, because all of these remittances the company is being accused of making represents profit that it has made out of the Nigerian market.

“It is curious that a company that has invested in the country and has benefited from the country with both parties having essentially been better off, in the last one year, maybe the company has made some errors without doubt, but we appear to have been hitting them every time with a sledge hammer and the company’s capital market evaluation in South Africa has gone down at some point by almost 40% as a result of its troubles in Nigeria.

Nigeria may perhaps want to review that regulatory attitude and indeed in this case the legislative attitude to what is a beneficial investor in the country.”