On January 8, 2020, the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, in a letter to MTN, stated that following careful review and due consultation with relevant statutory agencies, the telecoms company owes $2 billion in taxes. This was after two years of allegation from the office of the AGF that the ICT Company owed taxes from 2007 to 2017. However, evidence showed that MTN has consistently paid its taxes to the Nigerian government.
In its 20 years of operation in Nigeria, it has paid over N2 trillion in taxes and levies to the federal government. In January 2020, the figure stood at N1.7 trillion, as recently confirmed by the company’s chief operations officer, Mazen Mroue, at the “MTN’s Value Contribution to Nigeria’s Socio-Economic Development. In a year, the figure rose to more than N2 trillion. As part of its tax payment to the federal government, the company announced in August 2021 that it responded to the federal government’s call for public-private partnerships in the rehabilitation of critical road infrastructure in Nigeria. This will involve its reconstruction of the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway.
