Rwandan national Annie Bilenge Tabura , MTN Uganda’s head of sales and distribution ,deportation has triggered protest from the neighbouring country.
Ms Tabura and her colleague, French national Olivier Prentout who was the telecom’s chief marketing officer were deported by Ugandan authorities on Saturday and Monday respectively.
Now Rwanda’s Kampala mission has accused Uganda of deporting several of its nationals under dubious circumstances.
Security sources have said the two senior officials were deported after intelligence agencies intercepted their communication to “a dangerous foreign group and persons” deemed a threat to the country’s security.
Mr Prentout was arrested on Saturday at the Entebbe airport on arrival from a business trip and deported.
On Tuesday, MTN Uganda issued a statement confirming the incident did not offer more details on allegations against its staff.
The statement said Ms Tabura was arrested by unidentified security personnel upon arrival at the MTN headquarters in Kololo.
“Both Mr Prentout and Ms [Tabura] have been deported from Uganda to their home countries, France and Rwanda respectively. MTN Uganda, together with all its employees, remains fully committed to operating within and respecting the laws of the country,” the statement said.
The two officials were reportedly returning from an MTN Group meeting in Rwanda.Security agencies remained tight-lipped on the matter.
No government official explained how the two MTN foreign officials had allegedly worked clandestinely to jeopardise Uganda’s security.
When asked about the cause of the deportation, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) spokesperson, Brig Richard Karemire, deflected the responsibility to police.
“That’s a police issue. They have already issued a statement on that,” he said.
Other security sources said the duo is suspected to have been intercepting calls of government officials, business people and sharing their conversations with security agencies of foreign countries.
“They have been working with a leading telecom company and could use the telecom’s devices to tap calls of government officials. This has been going on for a while and a team of IT experts were assigned to track them down,” a senior security source said, another claim Daily Monitor could not verify.