NITEL sale to face more delays

With barely three working days left (to November 17), for the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) to sell the Nigerian telecommunications (NITEL), the bureau foresees an extended date as the process experiences more delays.

The Federal Government had given the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) and the BPE, 60-working days within which to sell off the telecom company, which has suffered a protracted divestment of government’s equity in the company.

The Bureau on Thursday attributed the delay to the inability of some foreign investors to get visas to visit Nigeria to assess NITEL assets.

Chigbo Anichebe, the spokesperson for the BPE, said, “Our major problem are from the investors from overseas. We have to set a date for them and they would have to prepare for their visas and that would give them about two weeks to secure a visa.”

Mr. Anichebe explained that it is only when the NCP has given the BPE approval before the bureau can send out invitations to the foreign investors.

“We were supposed to hold a council meeting, but it didn’t hold but we are waiting for when they would call for a meeting, and this is likely to be next week. The reason why the meeting did not hold was because of the Council of State meeting, which the NCP chairman, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan is the head of both councils. We can’t give out any information right now because any information going out to investors must seek the council’s approval,” said Mr. Anichebe.

Deadline extensions

On October 6, the BPE extended the deadline for the expressions of interest (EOIs) from October 2 to October 26.

According to the BPE, the deadline was extended because more foreign investors were interested in NITEL and were asking for more time.

However, the BPE is not concerned about the delay in the bidding process; saying that it is better the process is delayed than to sell NITEL to the wrong investor.

Mr. Anichebe told NEXT, “For BPE, a big ticket transaction like this, the delay is not the major issue, the major issue is getting the right investor. Government wanted it faster because the value of NITEL keeps going down (depreciating) because of competition in the market.

“For us, we are doing our part, we are not the decision-makers. So, they would have to take a decision for us to proceed. When we get to the council, we will tell them it is not our fault because we have done everything they have asked us to do and if the council meeting would be done this week, then we would still meet the deadline,” he added.

Following the delay in the process, the prospective Nigerian investors are also tired of the delays, especially as they have not been granted access to view the assets they are proposing to buy.

In a telephone interview with NEXT, the chief executive officer of Etisalat, Steven Evans, said, “We are still waiting to have due diligent to view the assets of NITEL and to be honest I don’t understand how an investor would be able to make a bid on assets without conducting a supervision of the assets. I don’t know why the delay and I don’t want to comment on that.”

NITEL Value

Just last week, a Nigerian newspaper (not NEXT) reported that Dora Akunyili, the Minister of Information and Communications, said that NITEL was valued at $600 million.

“We are not politicians; we are technocrats. The value of a company is between the seller and the buyer, and the seller can say an amount and the buyer would not value it at that amount or more than the stipulated value. We have to wait for the buyers to tell us that what we have is real,” said Mr. Anichebe.

“We can meet the 60 days deadline given to us by the Federal Government and get a cheating investor that would ruin the place, so the essence is for us to do a better job and get NITEL running,” he added.