South Africa’s MTN denied it paid a bribe to Nigerian officials to reduce its fine to 330 billion naira ($1.05bn) as part of settling a dispute over disconnecting unregistered SIM cards in the West African country.

MTN said in a statement on Friday there had been allegations that a top official in the Nigerian presidency took a payment towards reducing the fine.

The telecom group was initially fined $5.2bn last October for failing to deactivate more than five million unregistered SIM cards.

In June, MTN agreed to pay a reduced fine of 330 billion in a settlement with the Nigerian government and said the fine will be paid by MTN Nigeria over three years.