A whistleblower—ex-Director for Emerging Markets Yasser Elabd—alleges that Microsoft takes over $200 million annually in bribes in Africa and the MENA region.
Elabd, who worked for Microsoft for 20 years before his employment was terminated in 2018, believes that employees, partners, and government officials with connections to the big tech company are funnelling money from Nigeria, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Zimbabwe.
What’s more, it’s not the first time such an allegation has been made.
Quick, remind me of the first time
In 2018, another whistleblower signalled the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to a dodgy deal between Microsoft, South Africa’s Department of Defence (DoD) and EOH Mthombo, a South African IT and consultancy agency that sells Microsoft licenses.
It was found that EOH Mthombo had underpaid Microsoft about R41.7 million (about $2.8 million) for a procurement deal it had signed with the DoD. While it appears that Microsoft was on the receiving end of this deal, the whistleblower claims that Microsoft employees were in on it.
And now
Ex-director Elabd, who believes he was fired for asking too many questions, alleges that many more bribery deals accompany Microsoft’s operations in Africa and MENA.
In Nigeria, Elabd claims, the Senate of the Nigerian parliament complained that Nigeria had paid $5.5 million for Microsoft licenses that were nowhere to be found.
In Cameroon, the government had also supposedly purchased 500,000 3-year OfficeAcademy subscriptions that disappeared.
Similar events, as Elabd claims, have also occurred in Qatar where the government paid $9 million annually over 7 years for Microsoft Office subscriptions it’s Ministry of Education wasn’t using.
Other occurrences also happened in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
While some of these allegations like the Qatari one have been confirmed by auditors, others have not.
What’s Microsoft saying?
In a response to The Verge, Microsoft says the allegations are years old and have been dealt with.
“We believe we’ve previously investigated these allegations, which are many years old, and addressed them. We cooperated with government agencies to resolve any concerns.”