The Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) and its mobile
subsidiary (MTEL) are to employ 10,000 Nigerians, the House of
Representatives Standing Committee on Communications has been informed.
The
new owners of the once state-owned telecommunications giant, NATCOM,
which is a consortium of seven local and foreign companies, made the
disclosure at an investigative public hearing by the committee on over
the weekend in Abuja.
NATCOM chairman, Mr. Olatunde Ayeni, had
told the House committee that having met all requirements and due
diligence in the process leading to the acquisitions of NITEL and MTEL,
the company has put in place a programme of resuscitating the two ailing
telecoms companies.
According to Ayeni, efforts were ongoing at
overhauling the entire cable system while 10,000 Nigerians would be
employed to set the companies on the part of competition with other
players in the market.
While expressing satisfaction with NATCOM
and its work-plan, the Hon. Saheed Fijabi-led committee directed both
the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) and the Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) to meet and discuss the sales of the two national
telecoms firms.
The parley according to the committee, was to
review the commercial and technical areas of the sale as they affect the
telecommunications regulatory body and the BPE.
The committee particularly expressed its concern over the settlement of the indebtedness of NITEL by its new owner, NATCOM.
The
committee however noted that though NATCOM did all that were required
of it despite not been given any form of waiver by BPE and NCC in the
process leading to the sales, but pointed out that it was however
necessary that the grey areas of NITEL’s indebtedness be sorted out by
the BPE and NCC.
The committee also mandated the BPE and NCC to report back to it after the said meeting.
No comments:
Post a Comment