Minister of Information, Lai Mohammaed, told Reuters during a visit to London, that the settlement of the dispute was afoot.
“I am sure there will be a settlement and I believe they are getting closer to resolving it,” Mohammed told Reuters during a visit to London.
“They are ‘businessmen’ and they are going to resolve it… it is in the interest of all the parties that this matter will be resolved,” he said, declining to give any further details.
The Central Bank said MTN transferred $8.1 billion of funds out of Nigeria in breach of foreign-exchange regulations. Nigeria, which accounts for a third of the South African company’s annual core profit, is MTN’s biggest market. But MTN has denied the charges.
The federal government had since adopted a softer approach to the dispute after the backlash that greeted the fines on the telco.
Godwin Emefiele, CBN governor had in late September told reporters in Abuja following a monetary policy committee meeting that “we’ll resolve the matter.”
In August, Nigeria shocked South Africa’s MTN and foreign investors when it ordered the telecoms giant to pay back $8.13 billion (6.96 billion euros) that it allegedly illegally took out of the country, and fined four banks involved in the transfer.
Days later, in early September, President Muhammadu Buhari’s attorney general followed up with another $2 billion tax fine.
With the economy still fragile after a deep recession in 2016 and elections looming early next year, many private sector players in Nigeria believe the move could dent investor sentiment.
It is not the first time MTN has been sanctioned by the Nigerian authorities.
In 2015, MTN was fined $5.2 billion by Nigeria’s telecoms regulator NCC for failing to disconnect unregistered SIM cards on its network.
The fine was later reduced to $1.7 billion after a series of negotiations with the Nigerian government.
