According to MyBroadband, President Cyril Ramaphosa gazetted a decree in January 2022 allowing the SIU to look into dubious transactions at the partially state-owned company.

Ramaphosa requested that the SIU look into the 2013 and 2011 sales of iWayAfrica and Africa Online Mauritius, as well as the 2011 sale of Telkom’s unsuccessful Nigerian operation Multilinks.

In July 2011, the late Roy Padayachiesaid, minister of communications, stated that Telkom lost R7 billion after acquiring Multi-Links in March 2007.

Telkom brought the case before the Pretoria High Court in July of last year, requesting that the probe be ruled unlawful and contrary to the Constitution.

Despite the fact that Telkom’s formal name, Telkom SA SOC Limited, has the abbreviation “SOC,” which stands for state-owned firm, Telkom maintained that the President exceeded his authority because Telkom is not considered a state institution under the SIU Act.

The proclamation was deemed to be unlawful, invalid, and without force or effect by the Pretoria High Court a year later. Telkom received costs as well.

Following its earlier investigations into the problems mentioned in the proclamation, Telkom claimed to have taken the necessary corrective action, including starting the proper legal actions when necessary.

“Telkom remains committed to following robust corporate governance principles and will continue to uphold these principles,” the group said.

The announcement comes after a trying time for the business, whose recently released financial results for the fiscal year left a lot to be desired.

The group reported that profits decreased from R2.6 billion in FY22 to R346 million in FY23 in its condensed consolidated statement of profit and loss.

Nevertheless, the group claimed that some financial data in the findings was pro forma data based on predictions of future performance and fictitious information.