Naledi Pandor, the foreign minister, and state officials met with business executives this week to discuss how South Africa could present itself as"a unified force" when operating on the continent, and ensure companies take full advantage of the available opportunities, said Clayson Monyela, a spokesman for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.
The initiative comes as companies including Vodacom and MTN, Africa’s biggest mobile-phone companies, deal with disputes in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon respectively. "When certain governments are running out of funds, they target South African companies, or at least it appears that way," Monyela said in a phone interview."In some of the countries they operate in, someone will wake up and say you owe us money and there is no rational for that. In other instances, they are slapped with taxes they know nothing about. Literally it is extortion.