President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered an investigation into the privatisation of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) and its mobile arm, the Mobile Telecommunications (Mtel).
The president gave the directive at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Tuesday after the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Communications Technology, Tunji Olaopa, briefed him about the activities of the ministry.
The National Council on Privatisation (NCP) had, on April 28, 2015 during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, handed over NITEL and Mtel assets to NATCOM Consortium upon full payment of the purchase consideration of $252,221,000 ahead of April 2015 deadline.
The NCP, headed by former Vice President Mohammad Namadi Sambo, had declared NATCOM Consortium the preferred bidder for NITEL and MTEL assets sequel to the disqualification of NETTAG Consortium as a result of its failure to submit a bid bond with its technical proposal.
But the permanent secretary of the ministry told State House correspondents yesterday that Buhari was concerned about the entire privatisation hampering investment in the information and communications technology.
The permanent secretary further noted that President Buhari specifically expressed concern about the liquidation of NITEL.
According to Olaopa, while the president is not opposed to the NITEL privatisation, he has directed the ministry to come up with a memo on how the transaction was undertaken to know whether Nigeria was shortchanged in the privatization exercise.
“The president is concerned by the quality of service of telecom operators. The president is very concerned about the whole issue of privatization that is hindering the investments in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure, and that he will personally champion this. The president talked about the potentials of the ICT sector in generating employment.
“The president is concerned about the liquidation of NITEL. He is not opposed to its privatization, but he wants to know, and he wants us to bring a memo on how the whole transaction was undertaken so that he would know whether Nigeria was shortchanged,” the permanent secretary said.
