Posted by By Everest Amaefule, Abuja on
Failure by Vice-President Atiku Abubakar to endorse the result of the negotiated sale of Nigerian Telecommunications Limited.....
Failure by Vice-President Atiku Abubakar to endorse the result of the negotiated sale of Nigerian Telecommunications Limited might have played a part in the inability of Transnational Corporation to meet the Thursday's deadline to pay $500million for the enterprise.
Authoritative sources close to the transaction told our correspondent in Abuja that the National Council on Privatisation, chaired by Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, has not endorsed the deal.
The Bureau of Public Enterprises had on Monday July 3, announced the sale of 75 per cent stock in NITEL and its mobile subsidiary, the Nigerian Mobile Telecommunications Limited, to Transcorp for $750million.
The company was given seven days to pay the first $500million of the price of the enterprise.
Under the arrangement, the rest of the money must be paid within 60 working days.
But the deadline expired on Thursday without the corporation being able to make the required payment.
Instead, it had, five hours after the deadline expired, paid $75million and asked for more time to sort out some issues in the Share Purchase Agreement.
The $75million payment represents 10 per cent of the price agreed to by both the BPE and the corporation and 15 per cent of the required $500 million initial payment.
Although Transcorp was originally required to pay the money in the New York branch of the Standard Chartered Bank, it paid the $75million via a draft brought to BPE on Thursday night.
With the announcement of one billion euros facility from the European Economic Commission by Transcorp's Chairman, Dr. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, the payment of the entire sum was not expected to be a problem to the group.
Investigations by our correspondent showed that the brickwall the corporation hit is not unrelated to the cold war between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku.
It was learnt that the vice-president was avoiding the responsibility of 'signing away" NITEL to the private sector friends of the Presidency.
Some sources also alleged that Etisalat, a United Arab Emirate company that Transcorp entered into financial agreement with to purchase NITEL, also had a deal with Transcorp to provide the money for the purchase of NITEL.
Consequently, they were to run NITEL, recoup their investment within a specified period of time and handover to Transcorp.
Atiku was said to have found some untidiness in this arrangement; hence, his decision to avoid signing the SPA.
However, the Media Consultant to the vice-president, Mallam Shehu Garba, said there was no truth in the allegation that Atiku was frustrating the deal.
He said, 'If you recall, the vice-president was on vacation for 23 days. The vacation coincided with the period when the NITEL deal was negotiated and concluded. So the VP was not involved in any way on this transaction.
'Whether anybody had offered a higher amount or not; the VP is not aware. During the period he was away, somebody must have done his work; you know how government works."
He, however, declined to say whether the vice-president has put his signature on the empowering papers to enable the transaction to proceed.
When contacted, BPE spokesman, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, said that BPE had not presented the NITEL deal for NCP approval.
He said this was because there was a window that allowed BPE to accept a bid if an offer meets the reserve price without reference to NCP.
He added, however, that the privatisation agency would refer to NCP on Transcorp's request for time extension.