Orange Tunisie is on track for partial nationalisation after the Tunisian council of ministers approved an order allowing the seizure of assets owned by former leaders, their partners and relatives.
The order of council is likely to concern the 51% stake…
Orange Tunisie is on track for partial nationalisation after the Tunisian council of ministers approved an order allowing the seizure of assets owned by former leaders, their partners and relatives.
The order of council is likely to concern the 51% stake in Orange Telecom held by Marwan Mabrouk since the son-in-law of ousted president Zine el-abidine Ben Ali is on the list of 110 people whose assets are subject to confiscation.
Orange spokesperson Jean-Bernard Orsini said: “The order of council was approved last Friday [February 25], but it has not yet been issued so the nationalisation is not effective. Anyway, it only concerns the stake of Marwan Mabrouk and not France Telecom’s stake.
We haven’t been in touch with the Tunisian authorities on the matter, but we remain attentive to the situation. At the moment, we are concentrating our efforts on our operations as we have 800,000 customers and 1,000 staff to take care of,” he added.
Orange and Mabrouk-owned Divona bought a combined fixed and mobile licence in June 2009 for E137.6m and launched commercially in May 2010.
Last weekend, prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigned and was replaced by former cabinet minister Beji Caid Sebsi.