{"id":12321,"date":"2012-07-12T00:28:28","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T22:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/s-africa-suspends-ambassador-linked-to-mtn-case-radio\/"},"modified":"2012-07-12T00:28:28","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T22:28:28","slug":"s-africa-suspends-ambassador-linked-to-mtn-case-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africa-suspends-ambassador-linked-to-mtn-case-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa suspends ambassador linked to MTN case -radio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG, July 11<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s foreign<br \/>\nministry has suspended a former ambassador to Tehran after<br \/>\nallegations he took a $200,000 bribe to help MTN Group<br \/>\nwin a mobile licence in Iran, a spokesman said in a radio<br \/>\ninterview on Wednesday.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Clayson Monyela told Talk Radio 702 that Yusuf Saloojee,<br \/>\ncurrently ambassador to Oman, had been suspended until<br \/>\ninvestigations into his links to the MTN deal are concluded.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africa&#8217;s Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said<br \/>\nthis week in a response to written parliamentary questions that<br \/>\nher department had started an investigation into the allegations<br \/>\nagainst Saloojee.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Johannesburg-based MTN is being sued by Turkish rival<br \/>\nTurkcell for $4.2 billion. The Turkish company<br \/>\nalleges MTN bribed Saloojee and used other underhanded methods<br \/>\nto win a licence over Turkcell in 2005.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>MTN has denied the charges and called Turkcell&#8217;s demands<br \/>\n&#8220;extortionate&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>An elite South African police unit also launched an<br \/>\ninvestigation but it has not given details of its investigation.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Saloojee has denied the allegations in statements published<br \/>\nby the South African media.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Shares of MTN were 1.4 percent lower at 144.46 rand at 1416<br \/>\nGMT, underperforming a Top-40 index, which was 0.88<br \/>\npercent down.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Sherilee Lakmidas; editing by David Dolan)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JOHANNESBURG, July 11 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s foreign ministry has suspended a former ambassador to Tehran after allegations he took a $200,000 bribe to help MTN Group win a mobile licence in Iran, a spokesman said in a radio interview on Wednesday. Clayson Monyela told Talk Radio 702 that Yusuf Saloojee, currently ambassador to Oman, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}