EDITOR'S VIEW
RON DERBY: Government silence on MTN's woes sad but not surprising
Not only its flag was being planted, but that of SA Inc as well
Why investors in New York and London care so much about our land expropriation talks or the Mining Charter is quite simple: they are investors in South African assets. If the government woke up tomorrow and decided to fine Google, Facebook, Netflix or any other US social media platform, only one outcome would be likely from that decision, apart from a tweet from America's number one citizen. There would be talk of tariffs and, in the worst-case scenario, sanctions. It's the natural response of any functioning government to protect its interests, even outside its borders. It says much about the state of President Cyril Ramaphosa's cabinet or to be fair, his inherited one, that not one mention was made of the travails of MTN in Nigeria. These are travails that have returned once again to threaten the very future of the mobile operator. Since MTN's problems came to the fore in Africa's biggest economy with threats of fines almost as large as its market capitalisation towards the end of...
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