The Federal Government on Thursday announced the appointment of Olusola Senbore and Co. as liquidator for the Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) and its sister company, mobile Telecommunications (MTEL).
The Minister of State for Finance, Dr Yerima Ngama, made the announcement in Abuja while briefing State House correspondents on the outcome of the 5th Meeting of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP), presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo.
Ngama said that the liquidator was successfully selected from eight companies that tendered a bid to be considered for the liquidation of NITEL/MTEL within the next six months.
“We are also happy to announce that at last liquidator has been appointed for NITEL/MTEL and this liquidator was reached after several bids were collected. About eight companies that bided to be considered, at the end of the day, five qualified and then after a lot of analysis, we came to the successful liquidator who is Olusola Senbore and Co.”
According to him, government expects the two firms to be sold off as ongoing concerns to continue in the same line of business.
He assured that “there will be no dismembering of the assets of the firms and then selling them differently, but the process will be similar to the sale of national fertiliser company in Onne, Rivers State, to global fertiliser giant, Notore.”
Ngama, therefore, expressed the hope that “this time around, we expect the sale of NITEL to be a success”.
According to him, liquidator and interested investors are expected to carry out due diligence on NITEL and MTEL after which preferred prices will be set by the BPE ahead of the privatisation process.
That’s a good step-up made by the government. Let the money realised be used for a substancial project.