Uganda's government said on Tuesday it had taken control of Libya's majority stake in Uganda Telecom, the latest move to freeze Libyan assets in the east African nation in compliance with UN sanctions. Information, Communication and Technology Minister Aggrey Awori told Reuters the take-over of Uganda's fourth largest mobile operator was partly to deter "predators" from seizing the firm's holdings.
"We have exercised our oversight and regulatory role and decided to impose an oversight regime on the company," Awori said by telephone. Uganda Telecom owes MTN Uganda 20 billion shillings ($8.32 million) in unpaid connection fees, according to the local subsidiary of South Africa's telecoms giant MTN. "We were preparing to seize their property over unpaid debt worth over 20 billion shillings but we understand the government has decided to take it over to forestall this," a senior MTN Uganda official told Reuters.
Athony Katamba, MTN Uganda's general manager for legal and corporate services told Reuters the two telecom firms had met on Monday and agreed on UTL's debt and a payback mechanism. It was not clear if the government's take-over threw that deal up in the air. Awori said UTL's board and management would start answering to the Ugandan government with immediate effect and that the authorities had begun reviewing the membership of both. Last week Uganda's central bank said it would appoint new members to the board and management of Libyan-owned Tropical Bank to ensure independence from the Libyan government.
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