MTN Group has appointed Troopti Desai as Group Executive for Taxes, effective next month.
In a statement, MTN said that Desai, who holds a Bachelor of Laws, an advanced degree in tax law, and an MBA from Wits University, has extensive experience in labor law, immigration law, corporate tax, merger and acquisition taxes, tax incentives, corporate governance, Law and finance as well as tax policy and involvement of the tax authorities.
She joins MTN from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) where she was a partner in the corporate tax department responsible for managing various types of tax risk for multinational corporations and South African listed clients in sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to PwC, Desai was Head of Tax for SSA at General Electric (GE) and also a director of several GE companies in South Africa.
Desai’s appointment as MTN’s tax chief comes a year after the telecommunications company was fired after a dispute with Nigerian authorities over a $ 2 billion tax claim.
MTN Nigeria’s tax dispute with the country’s attorney general had been ongoing since September 2018 after it was hit with a $ 2 billion back tax demand.
Nigeria is MTN’s largest market, accounting for a third of the African telecommunications giant’s annual core profits.