Abdulfattah Olajide
9 July 2008
The Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) will be sold to the best bidder in the fresh move to privatise the company, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan said yesterday.
Speaking when he received Vodafone executives led by the its Chief Executive Officer UK, Paul Donovad at the State House in Abuja, vice president Jonathan said the government would like to quickly conclude the privatisation of NITEL for the benefit of Nigerians.
"Only a competent and efficient company would be allowed to take over the management of NITEL from Transcorp, " he stressed.
The vice president noted that "despite the availability of reasonable infrastructure, land lines in Nigeria are functioning below expectation resulting in telecommunications being too expensive. "
He expressed optimism that telecommunications tariff would crash as soon as land lines start working efficiently.
The Vice President expressed government's disappointment over the performance of Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL), saying that it was constituting a national embarrassment.
He observed that government had invested heavily in the development of NITEL's infrastructure, with little or no tangible result.
He therefore stated government's determination to hand over the management of NITEL to competent telecommunications company.
He, however, advocated the resuscitation of land line telephone services, to bring down the rates of GSM and relevant telecommunications services.
Mr. Donovan indicated the readiness of his company to partner with the Nigeria in developing the telecommunications sector.
He said Vodafone had acquired 70 percent ownership of Ghana's Telecommunications Company.
Donovan expressed the readiness of Vodafone to transform the Nigerian telecommunications sector, if given the opportunity to do so.
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