President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday
expressed his desire to revisit the recent liquidation of the Nigerian
Telecommunications Limited and its subsidiary, Mobile Telecommunications
Limited.
The President made his position known
when officials of the Ministry of Communications Technology took their
turn to brief him on the ministry’s activities at the Presidential
Villa, Abuja.
The
ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Dr. Tunji Olaopa, disclosed this to
State House correspondents after the closed-door session with the
President.
Olaopa said Buhari had directed that his ministry should prepare a memo for him on the transaction.
He said although the President was not
opposed to the privatisation, his desire was to ensure that Nigeria was
not short-changed in the transaction.
Olaopa said, “The President was concerned about the liquidation of NITEL.
“He is not opposed to its privatisation
but he wants to know and wants us to bring a memo on how the whole
transaction was undertaken so that he would know whether Nigeria was
short-changed.”
The permanent secretary added that Buhari
also raised concerns over the quality of service being offered by
telecommunications firms in the country.
He said the delegation explained to the President some of the factors responsible for the poor service.
He identified the factors to include multiple taxation and the right of way.
He expressed the optimism that Buhari would wade into the situation in order to ensure that Nigerians would get value for money.
He added, “The President was concerned
about the quality of service by telecommunication operators. The
President is very concerned about the whole issue of privatisation that
is hindering the investments in the ICT infrastructure and that he will
personally champion this.
“The President talked about the potential of the ICT sector in generating employment.”
It will be recalled that the National
Council on Privatisation had on April 26 directed the Bureau of Public
Enterprises to hand over NITEL/MTEL to NATCOM Consortium.
The decision was taken at a meeting of
the council presided over by former Vice President Namadi Sambo at the
Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The Deputy Chairman of the council’s
Technical Committee on Privatisation, Haruna Sambo, made the decision
known at a press briefing held after the meeting.
Sambo explained that the directive was
given because the preferred bidder had paid the total cost of
acquisition of the companies.
He said, “You recall that at the last NCP
meeting, approval was made for the financial bid for NITEL/MTEL by the
bidder, NATCOM Consortium, at the cost of $252.251m.
“Today (April 26) at the council’s
meeting, the council approved the handover to NATCOM Consortium, having
paid the cost of acquisition.
“By this approval, the process has come
to a closure and the council has mandated the BPE to hand over the two
companies to the preferred winner, of course, after all other
outstanding issues are taken care of.
“With this, the transaction has come to
an end and the council asks the BPE to hand over the two companies to
the bid winner, NATCOM Consortium.”
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