Probe continues into MTN bribe claims
|Published
File picture: Siphiwe Sibeko File picture: Siphiwe Sibeko
South Africa’s former ambassador to Iran, Yusuf Saloojee, may have escaped a government sanction in connection with bribery allegations against MTN, but the Hawks is still pursuing him and others.
Although his former employer, the Department of International Relations and Co-operation apparently abandoned its probe into Saloojee’s conduct after his contract expired in December, the Hawks has confirmed that its investigation of the bribery allegations continued.
The former ambassador has been accused of accepting a bribe of about $200 000 (R2 million) from the MTN Group in a deal linked to its acquisition of a cellphone operating licence in Iran.
Saloojee has been accused of pocketing the money in court papers filed by Turkish cellphone company Turkcell in the US in March last year. The allegations against Saloojee date back to the mid-2000s when MTN secured its Iranian licence.
In a letter dated August 19, the Hawks head of Priority Crime Investigation, Major-General Hans Meiring, confirmed to DA MP David Maynier that the unit was still pursuing the investigation.
“This office confirms that the investigation relating to the allegations against MTN is still ongoing and that the Hoffmann Commission report has no influence in the criminal investigation,” wrote Meiring.
He dismissed the findings of an MTN-appointed committee, known as the Hoffman Committee, headed by British Supreme Court judge Lord Leonard Hoffmann, which cleared the cellphone company.
After a year-long investigation, it found Turkcell’s allegations against MTN were “a fabric of lies, distortions and inventions”.
Maynier said International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane had “let Saloojee off the hook. She is clearly desperate to cover up the alleged misconduct.
“I’m not going to allow this matter to be swept under the carpet,” Maynier said. - Pretoria News