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President’s son embroiled in corruption allegation
Business Insider, a US based business news site, is at loggerhead with government officials allied to Senegalese President Abdoulie Wade and his son, Karim Wade, over a damning report the newspaper published about the aging president’s son.
Karim Wade, who is described as the most powerful minister in his father’s government, holding the portfolios of International Cooperation, Spatial Planning, Air Transport and Infrastructure, was the subject of a damning article by paper, captioned: ‘The Joy Of Doing Business In Africa: How Senegalese Politicians Tried To Shake Down Millicom For $200 Million.’
That article, published February 4, 2010, gave account of how the president’s son and perceived successor tried to lure a major US telecommunication’s company in bribery for operating licenses in the country’s competitive telecommunications industry. This obviously hasn’t gone down well with President Abdoulie Wade who is engaged in an all-out war with the press and opposition political parties in Senegal about his almost clear intention of passing over power to his son. President Wade, in an interview recently with a French Magazine, Marianne, in mid February, described the Business Insider story as ‘manipulation’. That followed a series of condemnation of the paper and threats of legal recourse by various Senegalese officials, including the country’s Prime Minister.
And now, the paper said that Karim Wade has formerly refused to grant them interview, while blasting them for publishing the incriminating article on his alleged involvement in demanding bribe.
‘‘Senegal’s president's son Karim Wade continues to blast Business Insider for raising questions about an alleged $200 million shake down over a telecom license. He has also now formally refused our request for an interview,’’ Business Insider reported Tuesday March 8, 2010.
According to Business Insider, Karim Wade has argued that the payment he demanded was simply a fair market price for the license. But they [Business Insider] argued that the State Minister has not explained why Millicom's existing license, which had another decade remaining on it, was canceled besides that it was obtained in 1998 for what has been described by the Senegalese authorities as too little ($100,000).
The damning February article named both Karim Wade and another influential politician Thierno Ousmane Sy, who is son of the Senegalese Interior Minister.
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