Whistleblower: Microsoft drives corrupt business in Africa and the Middle East
A former manager accuses Microsoft of corruption. The mega-corporation allegedly funnels millions in bribes annually in Africa and the Middle East.
Yasser Elabd, a former manager at Microsoft, is making serious allegations of corruption against his former employer. In an article for the online portal Lioness, he details how Microsoft allows bribes to flow in Africa and the Middle East.
In his article, Elabd describes several deals with dubious partners and contracts signed on the basis of fictitious services. In the process, representatives of public institutions from the affected countries would arrange for these institutions to pay pay more for Microsoft products than actually demanded - the surplus would be distributed between the parties involved.
Questions about dubious deal lead to dismissal
Yasser Elabd worked for the tech company between 1998 and 2018. He was responsible for promoting and distributing Microsoft products in Africa and the Middle East. As such, Elabd regularly signed contracts with the public sector. Among others, in Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Qatar, Egypt, Ethiopia or Kenya. His tasks also included brokering licenses or services for public institutions.
In 2018, Yasser Elabd was terminated. According to the former manager, this happened because he wanted to take a closer look at a deal in 2016. This involved a proposal for more than $40,000.
"As soon as I looked at the application, I knew something was wrong. The customer didn't show up in Microsoft's internal database of potential customers," Elabd writes in the article. In addition, the partner was underqualified for the project and should not have been working with Microsoft in the first place. The person had previously been employed by Microsoft and had been terminated.
"Turn your head away and let the matter rest."
Elabd's repeated complaints about the request would have petered out at first - later creating resentment with his supervisor. They didn't want him to block business, he said. "If a subsidiary in the Middle East or Africa takes action, you have to turn your head away and let it go," his supervisor told him.
After Elabd escalated his complaints all the way to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, he said, he was henceforth barred from important business deals - shortly after which came his termination. In 2020, he says, he was leaked more documents by a former colleague that further supported his suspicions about Microsoft's corrupt business dealings.
According to Microsoft, the matter has already been resolved
According to the portal Tech Central, Microsoft has since spoken out with a statement. "We believe we have already investigated and followed up on these allegations, which are many years old," Becky Lenaburg, vice president of legal for compliance and ethics at Microsoft, told AFP.
They had worked with authorities to address any concerns, Lenaburg added. She said that as part of the investigation at the time, "employees and partnerships were terminated." In addition, Lenaburg stressed that there was a mandatory course on standards of business conduct - all employees had to attend.
200 million a year for corruption
According to Elabd's estimate, 60 to 70 percent of the company's sales staff and managers in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Europe would receive corrupt payments. Thus, he calculates that the tech company flows 200 million in bribes annually in these regions.
Whether Elabd's statements will lead to an investigation in the U.S. remains to be seen. According to the former executive, Microsoft's business practices violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. federal law that prohibits payments to government officials abroad.
This is not the first time Microsoft has been linked to corruption. In 2019, the mega-corporation had to pay$25.3 million in fines for corrupt business practices in Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Turkey.
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