Republic of Benin - The Revocation of Mobile Network Licences and Corruption in Telecommunications

Benin is a country of some 8.7 million people, having grown rapidly from only four million in 1985. It had a GDP per capita of only USD 1,119 in 2006, less than half the African average of USD 2,844. Mobile telephony was the only infrastructure in which the country scored well. The number of mobile phones rose from 0.9 per 100 population in 2000 to 12 in 2006. However, there were only around 78,000 fixed lines, equivalent to less than one percent. In 2005, prosecutors in the USA indicted Titan Corporation on charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for bribes paid to officials in the Republic of Benin, in respect of a telecommunications network it had constructed. In July 2007, the Transitional Regulatory Authority for Posts and Telecommunications of the Republic of Benin revoked the GSM network licences of Areeba and Moov, branches of two of the largest mobile operators in Africa, Etisalat and MTN. In doing so, it shut down about 70 per cent of all the telephones in the country. The following month a new GSM licence was issued to the Nigerian firm Globacom, with a promise that it would begin operations by October 2007. Then in September the two cancelled licences were restored and operations allowed to resume