The South African Telecommunications firm, MTN Group, says it will invest $1billion over in the next five years on 5G technology in Ghana. This declaration came after the company’s Ghana unit was cleared from its tax dispute with the Ghana government.
MTN’s Ghana subsidiary had been faced with $773million back taxes after the Ghana revenue authority said its audit for the years 2014 to 2018 revealed MTN had under declared its revenue by 30% over the period.
The tax dispute prompted the intervention of the South African foreign minister who urged the parties to settle the issue amicably.
MTN has now pledged to invest in the 5G technology with the intent to boost growth across sectors in the country.
Ghana is facing serious economic headwinds with serious currency depreciation, and the government is looking to boost its revenues from all sources, including taxes.
MTN had faced similar tax disputes with the Nigerian tax authorities over unpaid taxes a couple of years ago, with similar settlement resulting i vastly reduced taxes for the Nigerian subsidiary.
