The Nigeria Association of Auctioneers (NAA) has asked the federal government to revisit the sale of Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) and its mobile arm, Mtel, to NATCOM. NAA says that the transaction must be revisited as the entire process defied transparency.
The association noted that the disposal of non-core assets alongside core assets to the core investor by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) without recourse to open competitive bidding negated basic principles that guide sale of government assets.
Addressing the media in Abuja at the weekend, National President of NAA, Alhaji Aliyu A. Kiliya, said his association had written an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari on two occasions, drawing his attention to the shrewd manner the BPE employed in selling off the former government telecoms firm.
Kiliya noted that as a duly licensed association, authorised by government to conduct sale of government’s non-assets, his members were completely ignored by BPE. He said he was only informed by the chairman of the association that NITEL/ Mtel was sold to NATCOM by BPE without engaging the services of auctioneers.
According to him, these items were supposed to be sold using open competitive bidding and government will generate huge money from the sale of unserviceable and serviceable assets which were lumped up by the BPE and handed over to NATCOM.
“We felt the procedure followed by BPE was wrong. Most of the agents that sold the assets were from BPE. Some BPE staff were involved in the sale of the assets in various places.
“We felt this was totally wrong and the association took the matter to court. I drew the attention of the then minister to the irregularity being done by BPE.
“The minister wrote to BPE and they suspended the sale and they transferred the sale to NATCOM because of our petition to the minister and NATCOM appointed liquidator. They allocated some of the utility vehicles to former staff of NITEL/Mtel so that they won’t talk.
“There was a firm that offered a bidding price of $1 billion for NITEL, but BPE in its wisdom sold it at $250 million to NATCOM. The process is not transparent and the association of auctioneers is calling for a re-visit of the transaction process.”
Recalled that after several failed attempts in the past to sell off the telecoms firm, NATCOM in 2015 emerged the core investor, offering a bid price of $252 million, an amount BPE said met its bid price.
BPE had clarified that NATCOM emerged the successful bidder in technical and financial commitment from the array of up to 17 firms that keenly contested for the two companies.
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