MTN Uganda stake sale to be restricted to East Africans -regulator

The sale of a 20 per cent equity stake in MTN Uganda, the East African nation’s biggest telecoms operator, will be restricted to citizens of the East African Community trading bloc, a spokesman for the sector regulator told Reuters on Friday.

The government is forcing all its telecom operators, including MTN Uganda and the local unit of India’s Bharti Airtel,, to list a fifth of their shares on the local bourse to allow locals to benefit from the sector’s profits.

“The shares are restricted to Ugandans, and also citizens from the East African Community (EAC),” Ibrahim Bbosa, spokesman for the Uganda Communications Commission, the regulator, told Reuters.

There was no immediate comment from MTN Uganda.

The six members of the EAC are Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.