Mauritius Telecom former CEO under scanner for alleged China links
The strong connection between Chinese technology company Huawei and the former CEO of Mauritius Telecom could have a huge impact on India’s national security. But Huawei has strongly penetrated the telecommunications sector in the island nation owing to which the Mauritius government has declared a war on the company. Rumour mills started working overtime following Sherry Singh’s resignation as chief executive officer of Mauritius’s national telecommunications company last month after heading the company for more than seven years.
Singh said in a letter to MT employees that he’s unable to continue as CEO without “compromising my values”, adding that it was “not an option” for him. In two separate interviews, he also leaked about the visit by an Indian team that conducted a survey in the island country on the request of Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth.
He claimed that Jugnauth had “forced” him to allow the “Indian team” access to a facility with the aim of installing a “sniffing device”. Singh’s claim fuelled speculations around India’s role but Jugnauth was forthright on the government’s position.
Blasting the opposition parties for casting aspersions on India, the Mauritius PM also highlighted the security issue that the island country was facing. Jugnauth said in a statement that he had personally approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi “to send a competent team for this survey.”
He added, “In Mauritius, we don’t have the technicians for this survey, but even if we did, we preferred to go for this Indian team of technicians.”
At a regular briefing, ministry of external affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that Jugnauth’s statement regarding the controversy was “good enough” from India’s perspective.
The issue of the allocation of contracts to Huawei under the era of Sherry Singh points towards the unholy alliance between the executive and the Chinese government. According to local media reports, some senior executives of MT have expressed serious reservations about certain processes during the allocation of contracts.
Contracts worth hundreds of millions of rupees were awarded to Huawei during the 2006-07 period, which skyrocketed to billions of rupees under Singh. The former MT CEO has allegedly used selective bidding exercises to help Huawei expand its business. The more problematic aspect of the link between MT and Huawei is the management of the data center, for which Huawei is responsible.
The country’s Central Criminal Investigation Department Special Cell has questioned Singh for three possible offenses - Breach of Information & Communication Technologies Act (Icta), Diffusion of False News and Criminal Defamation.
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