Federal government is to handover NITEL/MTEL facilities to NATCOM consortium having completed the payment of $252.251million cost of acquisition, according to Haruna Sambo, deputy chairman, National Council on Privatization Technical Committee.
Sambo who spoke at the first meeting of the year and the last for this administration, 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 $ 252.251 million. Today, at the council 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 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”.
Also Vice President Namadi Sambo, Godknows Igali, permanent secretary of Ministry of Power said that government had settled about 98 per cent of ex-PHCN workers, including their pensions and gratuities directing that any other remaining cases should be referred to the BPE for settlements.
On his part, Musa Sada, minister of Mines and Steel, said that the council also discussed reforms of the National Parks as well as the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) with the aim to restructure the sector and bridge the 17 million housing deficit in the country.
Sada said “Another area was that of the Federal Housing Authority. Every body knows that we have about 17 million housing deficit in the sector. For us to be able to build and recover this deficit, we must be ingenious in the way we handle the deficit in the country.
“There is not country that succeed without the involvement of the private sector. So the policies must be right first. The committee presented reports on how to restructure the housing policy to meet the housing needs”.