{"id":7226,"date":"2012-01-20T20:57:07","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T18:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/01\/zambia-freezes-libyan-phone-firms-bank-accounts\/"},"modified":"2012-01-20T20:57:07","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T18:57:07","slug":"zambia-freezes-libyan-phone-firms-bank-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/zambia-freezes-libyan-phone-firms-bank-accounts\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia freezes Libyan phone firm&#8217;s bank accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Zamtel bank accounts seized<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Zamtel denies money laundering<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">LUSAKA<\/span> Jan 20 (Reuters) &#8211; Zambia&#8217;s government has<br \/>\nseized bank accounts belonging to telecoms group Zamtel,<br \/>\nmajority-owned by Libya&#8217;s LAP Green Networks, as part of a<br \/>\nmoney-laundering investigation, the company said on Friday. It<br \/>\ndenied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The authorities have no reasonable grounds whatsoever to<br \/>\nbelieve that the moneys in the seized accounts and any other<br \/>\nZamtel accounts are from the proceeds of criminal activity,&#8221;<br \/>\nZamtel said in an email response to Reuters questions.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A government inquiry in November into Zamtel&#8217;s $257 million<br \/>\nsale to the Libyan operator ruled the 2010 transaction illegal.<br \/>\nZambia&#8217;s attorney-general was still deciding whether to reverse<br \/>\nthe deal or not, the justice minister said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Since his election in September, President Michael Sata has<br \/>\nthrown a spotlight on a number of deals executed under his<br \/>\npredecessor Rupiah Banda, who was criticised for taking a lax<br \/>\nline on graft.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Sata in October scrapped the $5.4 million sale of unlisted<br \/>\nFinance Bank to South Africa&#8217;s FirstRand.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Zamtel said it would challenge the seizure of its accounts<br \/>\nin court, while LAP Green said last week it would fight any<br \/>\ndecision to reverse the sale. It added that it would invest $129<br \/>\nmillion in the company over the next two years.\t<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Chris Mfula; Editing by Ed Cropley)<\/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>* Zamtel bank accounts seized * Zamtel denies money laundering LUSAKA Jan 20 (Reuters) &#8211; Zambia&#8217;s government has seized bank accounts belonging to telecoms group Zamtel, majority-owned by Libya&#8217;s LAP Green Networks, as part of a money-laundering investigation, the company said on Friday. It denied any wrongdoing. &#8220;The authorities have no reasonable grounds whatsoever to [&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-7226","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\/7226","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=7226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}