Abuja — Senate Committee on Communications has said it was embarking on a probe of the N59 billion Rural Telephony project under the last administration, to find out why the project was yet to take-off.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Sylvester Anyanwu, said in an interview at the weekend, that the probe was not targeted at any individual, but at the project which was under the supervision of the Ministry of Communications.

He said, "what we are doing is essentially focused on the rural telephony project which from our preliminary observation, was a project run by the Ministry of Communications.

"We are interested in what happened that after so much money running into billions of naira was expended, the project is yet to take off, so we are interested in the immediate take off of the project."

Anyanwu said the expenditure was made before President Umaru Yar' Adua's administration came into being, adding that contrary to a newspaper report (not THISDAY), former president Olusegun Obasanjo was not the target of the probe.

Anyanwu said, "we have no reason to believe that Obasanjo has direct or indirect involvement in the project, so suggestions that Obasanjo is under probe does not really arise."

Meanwhile, Anyanwu, also yesterday, described operations of GSM companies in Nigeria as "embarrassing."

Speaking on the implementation of the agreement between GSM service providers brokered by the Senate and House Committees towards improving service quality, Anyanwu said, "yes, we are concerned that the GSM companies have not kept to the promise of ensuring better service delivery during this period, and we will invite them again and take necessary steps to address the issue, as this is becoming very embarrassing to the people of this country."