WASHINGTON-Western Wireless International Corp. and Modern Africa Growth & Investment Co., U.S.-based majority owners of a mobile firm in Cote d’Ivoire, have filed a $54 million expropriation claim against the government of Cote d’Ivoire in an effort to reclaim assets seized by the government Oct. 9 during an assault and occupation of the company.
RCR Wireless News first reported in October that Western Wireless planned to seek compensation for a $40 million investment in Cora de Comstar, a GSM mobile firm. About $10 million of the investment is guaranteed by the Overseas Private Investment Corp., a U.S. government agency that has been a magnet for controversy and whose reauthorization is pending in Congress.
When Cora management turned off its mobile-phone network Oct. 12 and told its 200 employers to go home-following repeated intimidation in which employees were held at gunpoint for a week-the carrier had 40,000 subscribers. Western Wireless said the police physically and verbally assaulted Cora’s employees during the seven-day occupation of its headquarters, and the company’s safes, documents and assets were stolen.
Cora, being the third and newest carrier in the country, was building its customer base by aggressively marketing prepaid service.
Cora officials accuse Alexandre Galley of terrorizing the company. They said Galley is a convicted felon and wanted by the United Nations for trafficking weapons for indicted war criminal Charles Taylor of Liberia. Cora investors said Galley, who has since changed his name to Raphael Gnadre Dago, claims to have an ownership stake in the Cora wireless system. But Cora investors’ exhaustive search proved that claim false. U.S. government and industry officials said they believe Galley won the silence and complicity of Cote d’Ivoire authorities by bribing them. On what grounds do they base this suspicion? U.S. investors said Cora officials were approached with a bribe.
Until a few years ago, Cote d’Ivoire was one of the most politically stable countries in Africa, leading Western Wireless to believe it did not need OPIC political risk insurance. For accounting purposes, Western Wireless’ investment in Cora has been written down to nothing, even though the carrier still could recover plundered assets and resume mobile-phone operations.
