One of the largest mobile telephone network operators (MTN) in South Africa has announced a significant decrease in its corporate Social Investment budget for the year 2017.
This follows MTN’s $1bn fine by Nigerian regulators after the network failed to meet a deadline to disconnect more than 5-million unregistered subscribers in that country.
MTN SA Foundation’s budget is dependent on the performance of MTN SA and is calculated at 1.5% of profit after tax.
Kusile Mtunzi-Hairwadzi , MTN South Africa Foundation general manager says regardless of cuts the foundation will continue to focus largely on providing information and communications technology connectivity to the special needs education sector, and on entrepreneurship and small business skills training.
Furthermore, the foundation handed 18 multimedia centres to schools, universities and special needs schools in 2017, for students and pupils with disabilities, she said.
The facilities consist of seater computer laboratories, printers, data projectors, interactive whiteboards, free connectivity and laptops. The special needs learning areas remained the most needy in terms of technology adoption, concludes Mthunzi-Hairwadzi.
