$8.1bn repatriation, CBN, MTN inch closer to truce – Minister

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and South African telecommunications giant, MTN are closer to a truce in their dispute over the repatriation of $8.1 billion.

Minister OF Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed who declared this, added that it “is in the interest of all the parties that this matter will be resolved.”

The central bank says MTN transferred $8.1 billion of funds out of Nigeria in breach of foreign-exchange regulations.

Nigeria, which accounts for a third of the South African company’s annual core profit, is MTN’s biggest market. “I am sure there will be a settlement and I believe they are getting closer to resolving it,” Mohammed told Reuters during a visit to London.

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“They are ‘businessmen’ and they are going to resolve it.

It is in the interest of all the parties that this matter will be resolved,” he said, declining to give any further details.

MTN’s shares have lost a fifth of their value since the Nigerian central bank ordered the firm and the four banks involved – Standard Chartered PLC, Stanbic IBTC Bank PLC Citibank and Diamond Bank PLC – to bring back the funds on Aug. 29. Governor Godwin Emefiele said earlier this month that the central bank may reduce the amount.