The eventual winner of the bid for Nigeria’s moribund national telecoms company, NATCOM Consortium, has paid the outstanding sum of the $252.25 million it bid for NITEL.
Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the government agency that oversaw the liquidation of NITEl and its mobile company MTEL, fixed last Tuesday for the payment of the bid price balance.
In a statement, Head of Public Communications at BPE Chigbo Anichebe, said NATCOM paid the 70 per cent balance four days ahead of the April 7, 2015 deadline.
“Under the guided liquidation strategy, all the core assets and business undertakings of NITEL and MTEL were to be sold to a qualified bidder by the liquidator under the general guidance of NCP.
“Thus, the bidder that acquires the assets of NITEL and MTEL will pledge to continue to operate the assets to provide telecoms services. This is as against the traditional liquidation of an enterprise by assets stripping,” he said.
The consortium had earlier paid US$75.76 million when it was announced the bid winner. The initial payment represented 30% of the bid sum as stipulated by the BPE.
Nigeria’s National Council on Privatisation (NCP) on February 27, 2012, approved the privatisation of NITEL and Nigerian Mobile Telecommunication (MTEL) through guided liquidation.
Anichebe said: “The deadline for the submission of technical and financial bids was Friday, November 7, 2014. The two pre-qualified bidders, NATCOM Consortium and NETTAG Consortium, submitted their technical and financial bids before the expiration of the deadline. The technical bids received from the two bidders were evaluated but unfortunately, one of the two pre-qualified bidders, NETTAG Consortium, was disqualified for failure to enclose a bid bond as clearly stipulated in the RFP.
“Following the disqualification of NETTAG Consortium, only the financial bid of NATCOM Consortium qualified for opening on December 3, 2014, having scored an average of 92 per cent in its technical proposal, which was above the minimum pass mark of 75 per cent and had also satisfied the requirement of a valid bid bond.”
Source# ITWebafrica#
