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 Communication Technology took their turn to brief him of their 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 he want 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 telecommunication firms in the country.
He said the delegation explained to the President some of the problems responsible for the poor service.
He identified some of them to include multiple taxation and right of way among others.
He expressed the optimism that Buhari would wade into the situation in order to ensure that Nigerians get value for money.
He added, “The President was concerned by the quality of service of telecommunication operators.
“The President is very concerned about the whole issue of privatisation that is hindering the investments in ICT infrastructure and that he will personally champion this.
“The President talked about the potentials of the ICT sector in generating employment.”
The National Council on Privatisation had on April 26 directed the Bureau of Public Enterprise 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 (August 26) at the council meeting, the council approved the hand over 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 council asks BPE to hand over the two companies to the bid winner, NATCOM Consortium.”(Punch)
