The Chairman of NATCOM, Mr. Olatunde Ayeni, has revealed that a total of about $1 billion has been spent on the revival of Nigerian Telecommunication Limited (NITEL) and its sister company, Mobile Telecommunication Limited (Mtel), which were recently acquired by NATCOM Development and Investment Limited from the Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (NITEL).
Mr. Olatunde made this known during a presentation before the House of Representatives Joint Committees on Communication and Privatisation, where he added that the firm’s services would be rolled out on Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt before expanding to other parts of the country.
He revealed that the injected funds and other efforts would see the company engage 4,000 employees by March, as it sets to roll out its mobile lines, and 4G/LTE services for broadband users.
According to the Chairman the initial financial bid was increased to $252.251 million from $221 million when juxtaposed with the liquidator’s reserved price of $256 million. NATCOM acquired assets and licences of NITEL and MTEL, percentage interest held in South-Atlantic 3 (SAT-3) consortium, and identifiable assets capable of generating viable business units.
“NATCOM’s full submission was duly made to NITEL/MTEL’s liquidator and Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Enterprises on November 7, 2014. NATCOM’s submission was accompanied by a bid bond in the amount of $10 million as stipulated in the liquidator’s RFP,” he said.