Johannesburg - Sipho Maseko, the chief executive officer of South African phone company Telkom, had charges of unlawfully driving a car with falsified number plates dropped by the state after he appeared in a Johannesburg court.
Maseko declined to comment as he left the magistrate’s court in the city’s Wynberg suburb on Friday.
The case against him was withdrawn, according to a court official.
The CEO of the country’s biggest landline phone provider displayed a different car licence plate to the one he was issued from February 2013 to July 2014 and incurred traffic fines of R18 000 in someone else’s name, according to a document filed by prosecutors at the Wynberg court in July.
Police started investigating Maseko a year earlier after he was accused of cloning car license plates to avoid traffic fines.
Telkom shares declined 0.6% to R59.66 as of 10:17 am in Johannesburg. The stock is down 14% this year, valuing the company at R31bn.
Pretoria-based Telkom is about 40% owned by the South African government.