By Patrick Jaramogi
Kampala, Uganda: Belgian national and former MTN Chief Executive officer, Wim Vanhelleputte was deported for communicating and ‘keeping in touch’ with the earlier deported MTN top officials, Spy Uganda reports. Meanwhile, we can reveal that it is not business as usual as pressure continues to mount from South Africa, Rwanda, Italy and France regarding the recent deportation of their citizens.
Vanhellputte’s deportation order was personally signed by the Internal Affairs Minister, Gen. Jeje Odong on Thursday evening last week and the MTN chief was later bungled into an SN Brussels Airline late night flight and flown back to Belgium.
While addressing the media, Deputy Police Spokesman, Polly Namaye said Vanhelleputte was deported for undermining the security of ‘our country’, and for being involved in activities that undermined security of the country, we have established from a top security chief that after the deportation of the three other top MTN bosses, intelligence kept monitoring those who were still communicating with them and the victim who fell into the trap was Vanhelleputte.
He joins the French national and MTN Uganda’s chief marketing officer Olivier Prentout, Rwandese Annie Bilenge Tabura, who was head of sales and distribution, and Franco-Italian citizen and general manager for mobile financial services Elsa Mussolini who were earlier deported.
We have established that the trio were accused by intelligence authorities of funding a campaign to sabotage the collection of new taxes introduced last June on mobile money transactions and social media sites, known as ‘Over The Top’ (OTT) tax and were also accused of spying on Ugandan Government authorities for Rwanda Government.
Spy Uganda has learnt that before and after President Museveni returned from the 32 session of the African Union Summit in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, pressure was already beginning to mount on him from Rwanda, South Africa, Italy and France.
Prior to the deportation of Vanhellputte, President Museveni had secret meetings with the French ambassador to Uganda, H.E Rivoal Ste’phanie and State House has been so cagey regarding the discussions that President Museveni and French ambassador had, though sources say the meetings focused mainly on the deportations of foreign MTN staff and the intelligence report that they were engaged in espionage. A State House source intimated to this reporter that President Museveni is expected to address these ‘pressures’ after he is done with the on-going Central Executive Committee Retreat that ends on Wednesday at Chobe Safari Lodge.
Mr. Vanhellputte’s deportation followed the sacking of the MTN’s Legal and Corporate Affairs Manager, Mr. Anthony Katamba who had served as a legal advisor for MTN for the last 18 years and his name has however been linked to various linkages with security operatives regarding torture and illegal arrests of some MTN staff. According to a statement from MTN management, Katamba was sacked for failing in his role as the company’s internal legal adviser.
