Shareholders of MTI Plc, a diversified infrastructure offering company, have petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission, (SEC) over the alleged involvement of some of its former directors in the fraudulent appropriation, distribution and utilisation of the company’s funds raised from the capital market.

According to the written petition from the shareholders, “between March and April 2008, after obtaining the consent of the SEC, MTI had a private placement to raise funds for the purpose of implementing its business development and expansion programme, improvement in information technology infrastructure, staff development and working capital as stated in the offer document.

“The sum of N5,200,000,000 was raised by way of private placement and the company was converted to a public limited liability company and its shares were listed on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, after a successful private placement.”

The shareholders said as soon as the funds were released to the board and management, the first event was the payment of what the directors called “severance pay.” Each of the five directors, the shareholders said took the sum of N55 million amounting to N275 million adding that all the directors, including the non-executive directors remained on the board after collecting the severance pay.

The foundation of MTI Plc was laid with its incorporation in December 2001. It commenced operations in the year 2002 as an Information Communication and Technology (ICT) company to provide a broad spectrum of world-class telecommunication products and services. It became a publicly quoted company in March 2008 with four distinct subsidiaries.

Headquartered in Lagos, MTI has offices in Ghana and Nigeria, and employs approximately 192 employees. The prime objective of this uniquely positioned company is to implement infrastructure projects on a commercial format. MTI’s business is to build quality, independently owned and operated infrastructure to service Sub-Saharan African needs in telecommunication, energy, transport and sanitation on an open-access, open-book and common-user basis.