The Federal Government has approved the sale of the Nigerian New Generation Telecommunications Consortium Limited subject to the company paying $750m as the initial deposit for the $2.5bn bid it made earlier for the national carrier.
The demand for the payment of the $750m confirms The PUNCH’s story Telecommunications Limited on Monday that the Federal Government had approved the bid by New Generation after eight months of vacillation on the transaction.
In a statement made available to our correspondent in Abuja, on Tuesday, the spokesman of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mr. Chukwuma Nwokoh, said the consortium had 10 days from the date of the issue of the letter of demand to make the initial deposit.
Nwokoh said, “President Goodluck Jonathan has approved that the BPE conclude the privatisation of NITEL, and its mobile arm, M-TEL, and that member of staff of the two organisations be paid their entitlements.
“In this regard, the President has approved that New Generation Telecommunications Consortium pays a bid security of $750m as a pre-condition for the issuance of an offer letter in its bid to acquire NITEL and M-TEL.”
It added, “In accordance with the provisions of the Requests for Proposal, the bid security sum is to be paid within 10 calendar days from the date of issue of a demand letter from the BPE.
“The balance of the bid amount of $1.75m should be paid within days from the date of the issue of an offer letter.”
New Generation Consortium had emerged the preferred bidder with an offer price of $2.5bn during the opening of financial bids for the privatisation of NITEL and M-TEL, which was held on February 16, 2010, in Abuja.
The reserve bidder, Omen International, made an offer price of $956.9m.
Read more: http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201010130463548
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