Ramaphosa and MTN's offshore stash

Shortly after Cyril Ramaphosa left MTN to become South Africa’s deputy president last year, he lashed out at companies that make profits “disappear” by shifting them “to low-tax operations where there is little or no genuine activity”.

But MTN, Africa’s biggest cellphone company, moved billions of rands earned in African countries to offshore tax havens while Ramaphosa chaired its board between 2001 and 2013. This was revealed in a joint investigation by ama­Bhungane and Finance Uncovered, a global investigative journalism network.

Most of the money, which MTN badged as “management fees”, ended up on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, where the company employs no staff and appears to own little more than a postbox.

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