BY VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG

ATTEMPTS by government through the Bureau for PublicEnterprises, BPE, to privatise the Nigeria Telecommunication Limited, NITEL and its GSM arm, Mtel, has become a national embarrassment.

President of the Senior Staff Association of Communications, Transport and Corporations, SSACTAC, Comrade Adetunji Adesunkanmi, in an interview with Hi-Tech, advised government to liquidate the troubled national carrier instead of allowing it to remain a conduit pipe to drain the nation’s economy.

Excerpts:

How do you view the recent scenarios in the bidding of NITEL/Mtel?

NITEL building

Right from onset, we have viewed the bidding for NITEL as lacking transparency because it was centred around a clique. We strongly believe that some people are just deceiving the entire nation. Remember the controversy that surrounded New Generation, that they were being sponsored by money launders. There were lots of controversies surrounding their operation, whether they were registered or not and that was the time labour started watching them. When the approval was given to them, they failed the first 10 days. Even after three months, they still failed to pay the stipulated amount that is supposed to be deposit for the purchase of NITEL. Government came up and rejuvenated the system when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan became the president to see how we can move forward. Then the Preferred bidder was again given another opportunity to make good its promise and was given another two months grace period to pay. And again it failed. The third time, government through the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) extended the period for payment and again they failed. All along, government has not been sincere with the transaction and as far as workers are concerned, we are not surprised that they failed. With what is on ground now, government has taken a bold step to ensure that they reduce the cost of maintaining workers in that organization because nothing practically is happening now. The only area where there is operation is SAT 3 where the fund being generated is nothing to write home about. However, when government set up the Presidential Task Force on labour restructuring in NITEL, it was able to reduce the number of workers to a manageable size. Government was able to reduce the cost of running NITEL/Mtel to about N115 million. From the money released by government there is a balance that can maintain the workers in the next six months with the hope that New Generation will come up to pick the company. However, we equally put a provision that if the Preferred bidder does not pay up, then whatever is being generated from the old available unit, which is SAT 3, would be able to pay the number of workers in the system. The workers are there because we still have some structures, infrastructures and equipment on ground which need to be protected. Even if tomorrow, government decides to auction them, they still need to be in good position to avoid vandalization.

The Reserved Bidder has been informed to come and make its payment. How do you view this option by government?

In any business transaction particularly when it comes to the issue of auctioning or public sales, when the Preferred bidder is unable to pay for the agreed item, then the reserved bidder is called upon to make payment. In this case, while the Preferred bidder quoted $2.5 billion, the reserved bidder quoted $950 million. Since the Preferred bidder failed to redeem its payment, the next step is to call the reserved bidder to come and pay. However, the reserved bidder don’t just take over like that because there must be a process. The next step is for government to ask the reserve bidder if he is still interested in the item to be purchased. That is the stage the government is now, trying to find out whether the reserved bidder is still interested in purchasing the organization. There will be a kind of mini negotiation after which the reserved bidder can now state the amount it is willing to pay for the item.

But the question is whether, they are equally ready to come and takeover NITEL.

Meanwhile, even if it is ready, the government should ascertain whetherf it has the wherewithal to run NITEL as a telecommunication company. Do they have the technical know how? Do they have the financial backing? Because the situation in NITEL/Mtel does not require any lip service from any organization that is buying.

The initial fear of the workers is that those indicating interest to buy NITEL are doing that so that they could buy it very cheap and go and resell at a higher amount. But with what we have on ground now, we are pleading with government that whoever must take over NITEL must have a phone carrier like other nations. They must have the technical know how and financial backing to run it.

If the reserved bidder is not interested, then what happens?. Labour had at several fora appealed to government to handover this organization to workers in NITEL/Mtel. We are not being inmodest or frivolous about it. We mean business. While we are saying this is that we have the technical know-how to manage this business. This could be attested to the statement by the former Minister of Information and Communication, Professor Dora Akunyili who confessed that throughout Africa, it is only in NITEL/Mtel that one can see the best trained workers who have the technical know-how to handle telecommunication system.

I can still boast that we have the best workers to handle NITEL/Mtel and make it operational. We know the question from government would be whether we have the financial backing, but if we are to run it as a business, we are equally going to look for a partner to get the financial backing. The only thing that government can do is to stand as a surety for us and when this is done, we will sign a performance bond with government to run the organization for a particular period of time and when we fail, government will take it from us. Government should ask for evaluation of the situation and how it could be run, let us see your partners and I tell you, if given this opportunity, we will manage the organization efficiently. However, if government is not ready to handover NITEL/Mtel to workers, they or their proxies should not use it as a conduit pipe to bleed the country.

Instead , let government liquidate NITEL and raise another national carrier that will effectively present a new lifeline for the country.

What about the issue of NIGCOMSAT requesting government to handover NITEL to it?

When NIGCOMSAT presented its proposal to government that it was interested in acquiring NITEL, the question we asked was how efficient have they run NIGCOMSAT. This is because to whom much is given, much is expected. Let government first investigate that. When was NIGCOMSAT formed and how has it be managed?