Business
Privatisation: NITEL, MTEL’s Buyer Promises Better Deal
The NATCOM Consor
tium chairman, Dr. John Ayeni has promised that the new firm will introduce a brand that will delight the Nigerian customers and market.
The NATCOM chairman spoke in Abuja last Tuesday at the handover of the assets of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) and its mobile arm the Mobile Telecommunications (MTEL) to the company (NATCOM), by National Council on Privatisation (NCP).
Ayeni noted that both new player and entity have entered the telecom industry, hence the need to expect an overhaul in the system.
He said the firm is of the view that there is a gap in the telecommunications market, saying that his company has come to bridge such gap.
The NATCOM boss, said such gap would be filled by listening to the customers and delivering what they need.
He stressed that the country was prepared to put the customers back to their original position as King through their different customer packages.
Also speaking Vice President Namadi Sambo who doubles as NCP’s chairman, narrated the legend of NITEL and MTEL before its privatisation to NATCOM.
He reviewed how the strategic core investor sale of 51 per cent share holding of NITEL to International London Limited (ILL) was unsuccessful some 14 years ago.
Sambo also recalled that there was a failed management contract by Pentascope with an aborted Orascom telecoms bid in 2005.
About the successful deal, he said NCP approved the privatisation through a Guided Liquidation Strategy through a competitive bid process.
According to him, NATCOM got the commission’s nod after beating other two similar companies which also submitted their proposals and technical requirement.
Meanwhile, he has urged stakeholders to see the privatisaiton as a necessary tool for the deregulation and opening up of hitherto government dominated sectors of the economy to the private sector among other issues.