By Laide Akinboade
Ahead of the November ending expected final sale of Nitel, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Communications, Senator Sylvester Anyanwu, has said that debts incurred by Nigerian Telecommunication Limited (Nitel), will be shared between the new buyer and Federal Government.

Anyanwu, who revealed this to journalists in Abuja last week, said it was imperative that the debt will be shared to reduce the pressure the debt could visit on the buyer or the government if either is left to bear it alone.
According to him, the Federal Government wants to come up with a system, whereby the debt burden being owed by Nitel will be shared by the buyer and the Federal government.

“And the federal government wants to come up with how we can share the burden of debts Nitel owes in order to reduce pressure and all these things are being put together. But I do believe that before the end of this month the new buyer of Nitel would have emerged, they have been shortlisted.”

He assured Nigerians that, by the end of November 2009, there will be a new buyer for Nitel, that the interested bidder have already been shortlisted.

The senator representing Imo north, noted, “We want to surprise Nigerians, arrangement are already in top gear between the executive and the legislatures. We want to ensure that the new buyer  does not disappoint like the others, we have series of other people that are interested. But we want to make sure that they are sincerely in the purchase of Nitel .”

Stressing that the Senate and the Federal government sympathize with the workers who have not been paid their salaries in almost a year, government want to come up with some funds to pay them. We appreciate their patients and we urge them to be more patient.”

“We had 49%, this time around we want to ensure that they take all as in 75% which will also include the Nitel staffs. We want to ensure that the staffs are involved in the running of the telecomm giant. We want to be as transparent as possible for Nigerians to see how it is run.  I want to assure Nigerians that Nitel will not die.” He said