Senate Says FG, Customers Owe Nitel N601Bn

Senate Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation has put the debt being owed the troubled Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (Nitel) by the federal government and its agencies at N250 billion.

The committee also disclosed that customers owed Nitel N351 billion, while the telecommunication company was indebted to banks to the tune of N64 billion.

Senator Olugbenga Obadara, committee chairman, who disclosed this to journalists at the end of an interactive meeting with the management of the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) also expressed reservations over the liquidation of the company by government.

Obadara said the parliament would have preferred a situation where the Federal Government provided some lifeline funds to the telecommunication company and then concessioned it to private managers.

The chairman added that considering Nitel’s huge assets and the large amount of money being owed the company, the guided liquidation of the telecommunication company was not in the country’s best interest.

He said: “We have confirmed that Nitel is being owed N351 billion, out of which, N179 billion is owed by the Federal Government alone, but the available fact before us is that government agencies are owing Nitel over N250 billion.

“We also know that Nitel owes banks N64 billion, which can still be negotiated. “Unfortunately, BPE cannot tell us the actual worth of Nitel they want to liquidate. But as people representing Nigerians who brought us here, we cannot allow such to happen.” Obadara said the beginning of NITEL problem was as result of it sales to Pentascope while Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, former FCT minister, was the director- general of BPE.