Industry Minister denies involvement in alleged illegal money transfer by MTN

The Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment has on Thursday dismissed the accusation that he was involved in an alleged illegal transfer of $13.92 billion MTN.

A parliamentary motion named Okechukwu Enelamah earlier this week, saying MTN had used him and some Nigerian banks to move the money out of Nigeria between 2006 and 2016.

MTN denied the allegations on Wednesday and Enelamah’s office issued a statement today saying the accusations were “without merit and baseless”.

The statement says: “At no time was Dr. Enelamah in a position to transfer funds out of Nigeria on behalf of MTN Nigeria, and at no time did Dr. Enelamah transfer any funds out of Nigeria on behalf of MTN Nigeria”.

The Senate has agreed to investigate the allegations made by one of its members Senator Dino Melaye against MTN.

The Senate’s accusation comes just three months after the South African firm agreed to pay a fine of 330 billion naira ($1.02 billion) to end a dispute over unregistered SIM cards.