MTN employees could face layoffs as a Cameroon court froze its bank accounts
As the tech world is battling with several layoffs, Africa's largest mobile operator, MTN Group may be forced to downsize in Cameroon, where its operations have been threatened.
Following a court decision on June 9, the South African mobile operator lamented that its Cameroon operations were threatened in the country with the seizure of its bank accounts.
CEO Mitwa Ng'ambi told a press conference in Douala on Wednesday that "a threat to our operations is a threat to everything we have built in service to Cameroon over the last 23 years," adding that the company will use "all possible means to put an end to the imminent miscarriage of justice."
MTN Cameroon, which reportedly has more than $22 million in its bank accounts, have been frozen by a Cameroon court order since September 2022, after a loan dispute with a Cameroonian business mogul named Ahmadou Baba Danpullo who asked the court to freeze the telcos account in Cameroon because a number of properties belonging to him were liquidated in South Africa.
The asset seizure has resulted in difficulties in paying service providers and employees and could potentially hurt MTN's more than 800 Cameroonian employees and an additional 200,000 people who work for suppliers and others, according to the mobile operator.
MTN is the largest mobile operator in Africa and its Cameroon subsidiary is the largest operator in the country, with over 10 million subscribers.
