The upcoming sale of Malta’s telecommunications operator GO to Tunisia’s national telecom company is under scrutiny in both countries due to potential conflicts of interest.
Telecom industry sources told this newspaper that both the Maltese and the Tunisian regulatory authorities were having another look at the deal in view of the fact that GO’s majority shareholder, Dubai’s Emirates International Telecommunications (EIT), was also the sole minority private shareholder in Tunisie Telecom (TT), making the venture seem “odd”.
“Despite having other options on the table, the majority shareholder in GO decided to sell its stake to another company in which it has a direct interest and a substantial stake.
“The deal smells odd, especially since EIT is well aware of the serious problems facing Tunisie Telecoms and has been trying to sell its stake unsuccessfully since 2013,” an operator in the industry said.
EIT denied any conflicts of interest and declared that despite the fact that GO’s chairman, Deepak Padmanabhan, also sat on TT’s board of directors, he had not participated in the decisions leading to the forthcoming deal.
“From the very beginning, when TT started considering the...
