The National Council on Privatisation yesterday approved two firms for the guided liquidation of the Nigeria Telecommunication Limited (NITEL) and its mobile arm, MTEL.
The two firms, NATCOM Consortium and NETAD Consortium were picked from the 17 firms shortlisted for the liquidation during the third meeting of the council for the year presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo at the Presidential Abuja.
Musa Sada, minister of Mines and Steel Development; Mike Onolememen, minister of Works; and Benjamin Dikki, director-general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, briefed State House correspondents of the meeting’s outcome.
Sada said the two firms led others shortlisted with 90.7 and 90.2 per cents respectively.
Assets up for bid in NITEL include the licences and the spectrum, the nationwide fixed wired networks, the national right of way duct system, the fibre optic transmission backbone, and the CDMA network system.
Others are international gateway earth stations, microwave transmission equipment/network and towers and other core assets.
The assests up for sale in Mtel, are the licences and the spectrum, national right of way, the Mtel GSM network including mobile switching centres, base station controllers, base transceiver stations and the general packet radio services.
Others are the analog (TACs) system and other core assets among others.
Sada said the government was working hard to ensure that the two firms bounce back better.
He said, “The criteria is being followed and out of this 17 firms shortlisted, two are qualified for request for proposal issuance. And this is what the council deliberated on today and approved the qualifications of the two companies.
“The two companies are NATCOM Consortium and NETAD Consortium and they came top with 90.7 and 90.2 percents respectively.
“You will agree with me that efforts at getting NITEL back on stream as been very strenuous, because of so many issues, so many problems, but this time around there has been strong efforts so that we do not go back to what we had before.
“With what is put in place, we are very confident that we would only move forward to take us to the appropriate destination.
“The idea here is for us to have a working institution not necessarily a situation where these assets are just dispensed with whatever reasons.
“From our discussions today, we are making sure that these assets does not go to somebody who for other considerations will want to own it and keep it.
“Our target is to make sure that NITEL, MTEL, comes back. It has very robusts assets and and it will be a very good thing for the country. Mobile telephones and network are not substitutes for land lines and that is why we are doing everything to be able to bring it back to work.”
Onolememen told journalists that the council also approved a five-year extension for the concessionaire of the new Warri Port, Associated Maritime Services Limited.
The minister said the extension was granted since there was no objection from the Minister of Transport and the Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority.
He added that the council also relinquished its 51 percent holding shares at the Stallion Property Development Company for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Pension Limited.
The decision was taken to bridge the pension gap observed in the NNPCPL.
Sada added that the council also received the report of a committee that visited the Ajaokuta Steel Company of Nigeria based on the allegation of assets stripping that was reported to the council at the last meeting.
He said no decision has been taken on the report, adding that a statement would be issued after the report must have been considered by the council.