Uganda’s leading telecommunication operator, MTN-Uganda has accused the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) of flouting legal procedure to gain access to the company’s data servers.
On Monday, July 2, at around 5pm, two employees of Huawei Uganda, a contractor of MTN were allegedly kidnapped from MTN Towers in Kampala by heavily armed men in civilian clothing who claimed to be Internal Security Organisation (ISO) Agents.
Charles Mbiire, the Chairman of MTN- Uganda board of directors told journalists during a press conference on Monday that it is so shocking that a government agency could use such illegal methods to access data yet there are laid down procedures that must be followed.
“They have always sent invitations, search warrants, Court orders, Police requests and we have always done it once its legal. We don’t hide anything, we are very transparent,” Mbiire said.
Mbiire said that, “This is not the first time, be it URA, UCC, they all write to us and we let them come and we allow them access to the servers, that is why we are questioning who these people are”.
Mbiire noted that this has prompted the company to get in touch with government to get to the bottom of the incident as well as establishing the motive of the attackers.
The company has as well sought legal advice from city lawyers of Kampala Associated Advocates as well as Sebalu and Lule Advocates on how they should handle the issue at hand.
“There is a representation by the intruders that they were acting on behalf of a government agency. The Police is investigating and they will give us a report, in such a situation, with some sort of misaligned government action, we don’t want to create a situation that is inconsistent with government efforts,” noted the Acting CEO of MTN, Anthony Katamba.
“It was important that these facts are reviewed by external counsels for proper guidance; we are making statements for an ongoing investigation and our statements may be prejudicial at a certain time if not well guided”.
