As South Africa’s migration debate intensifies, MTN Group, Africa’s largest telco, is warning that anti-immigrant sentiment could have consequences beyond politics, affecting the movement of skills and businesses across Africa.
The telecoms giant has built one of Africa’s largest telecommunications businesses, connecting 312.7 million customers across 19 markets in Africa and the Middle East. With most of its growth coming from outside South Africa, the company is concerned that rising hostility targeting African migrants runs counter to the regional integration on which its business depends.
The developments have resonated across MTN’s footprint. Nigeria and Ghana, its largest markets, have joined Zimbabwe, Malawi and Eswatini in evacuating citizens from South Africa after the March and March Movement, an anti-immigration activist group, issued undocumented migrants with a June 30 deadline to leave the country.
At the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s Winter Seminar on Thursday, which focused on migration, MTN executives made the business case for open borders. They argued that Africa’s future depends on creating economic opportunity, expanding digital connectivity and allowing skills and talent to move freely across the continent.
