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.
The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Musa Sada; Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen; and Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Benjamin Dikki, briefed State House correspondents of the meeting’s outcome.
Sada verbally expressed the two firms led others shortlisted with 90.7 and 90.2 percentage scores, respectively.
Assets up for bid in NITEL include the licences and the spectrum, nationwide fine-tuned wired networks, national right of way duct system, ibre 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 assets up for sale in M-Tel are the licences and the spectrum, national right of way;GSM network, including mobile switching centres, base station controllers, base transceiver stations and the general packet radio accommodations. Others are the analogue system and other core assets.
Sada verbalized the regime was working strenuously to ascertain that the two firms bounced back more preponderant.
He verbalized, “The criteria is being followed and out of these 17 firms shortlisted, two are eligible for request for proposal issuance. And this is what the council deliberated 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 per cent, respectively.
“You will concur with me that efforts at getting NITEL back on stream have been very strenuous, because of so many issues, so many quandaries; but this time around, there have been vigorous efforts so that we do not go back to what we had afore.
“With what has been put in place, we are very confident that we will only move forward to take us to the congruous destination.
“The conception here is for us to have a working institution not compulsorily a situation where these assets are just dispensed with for whatever reasons.
The minister integrated, “From our discussions today, we are ascertaining that these assets do not peregrinate to somebody who for other considerations will optate to own and retain them.
“Our target is to ascertain that NITEL/M-Tel comes back. It has very robust assets and it will be a very good thing for the country. Mobile telephones and networks 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 withal approved a five-year extension for the concessionaire of the incipient Warri Port, Associated Maritime Accommodations Limited.
The minister verbalized the extension was granted since there was no remonstration from the Minister of Transport and the Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority.
He integrated that the council withal relinquished its 51 per cent holding shares in 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 integrated that the council additionally received the report of a committee that visited the Ajaokuta Steel Company of Nigeria predicated on the allegation of asset divesting that was reported to the council at the last meeting.
He verbally expressed no decision had been taken on the report, integrating that a verbal expression would be issued after the report must have been considered by the council.
