President Museveni who is in Davos, Switzerland has met the MTN Group Chief Executive Officer, Rob Shuter, discussing with him an array of issues. President Museveni met the the MTN chief on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
The Ugandan president advised MTN to work towards floating shares on the Uganda Stock Exchange so that Ugandans can partly own the company.
“Local ownership is important because it helps us stem capital flight which happens when the company is fully foreign owned. The question of repatriating 100% of your profits yet there is little value-addition and wealth creation for Ugandans is unfair,” the president said in a statement posted on his social media platforms.
It is for this reason, the president added, “that we are banning registration of new fully-owned foreign betting companies while the old ones will not have their licences renewed. All they do is accumulate money from Ugandans then ship it out of the country.”
Mr Museveni further noted that in his meeting with Mr Shuter, he also warned against telecoms under-declaring calls and cheating government of revenue.
“We have bought machines to track these calls but it is still important that the companies do not engage in this vice,” said Mr Museveni.