THE Bureau of Public Enterprises has said that, it is awaiting further directives from the Federal government regarding the privatisation of the troubled Nigeria Telecommunications Company Ltd (NITEL).A source at the BPE informed The Guardian that the government, through the National Council on Privatisation, headed by Vice President Namadi Sambo was consulting on a wider scale to chart a new path for the hitherto national carrier.The Spokesperson for BPE, Mr. Chukwuma Nwoko told The Guardian at the weekend that, the agency was indeed waiting on government for further action on NITEL.Nwoko said: 'Well for now, there is nothing new. But I believe government is still consulting on NITEL. As for us at BPE, we await fresh directives from government on the privatization plan of the telecommunications firm.'But in a conversation with The Guardian on this development, the President of the Association of Telecommunications Company of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu said he still stood by the position he held in 2009, which was that, the First National Operators (FNO) license that NITEL is holding be auctioned adequately.Speaking on whether unbundling the telecommunications firm will bring the turn around NITEL needed, Omo-Ettu, an engineer said: 'I know it was an option that was thrown on the table just as a few others. I do not know what makes it a good choice. I know however, that it is the process that presents a path of least resistance.'According to him, NITEL remains the First National Operator and that, it is what gives value to the license it is holding, 'unbundling it means it will no longer count as FNO and that will mean a significant devaluation of the worth of the license.'The reason there is a problem in privatization process is the penchant of senior government officials to benefit themselves from the process. The process is not as difficult as it has posed to Nigeria. The DNA to be transparent is just not available within the BPE bloodstream', he stated.A senior telecommunications analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, opined that NITEL failed majorly because of poor marketing strategy.According to him: 'The metaphoric question on the lips of those of us, who are analysts is why did NITEL operated at a loss in a market others are reaping huge profits' Where was the missing gap' He attributed such gap to people incapability, poor strategy and failed systems and structures.'If government knew there was too much money in telecoms, why did NITEL have only about 400,000 lines for a population of about 140 million when it was evident that many people wanted the lines' Did government understand the need and fill the gap'' he asked, noting that marketing is not just advertising but understanding the needs and fulfilling them.Continuing, he said that poor systems do not allow government organisations embrace marketing as part of their strategy, and 'if government organisation sets goal, it can then set strategy to achieve that goal.'According to him, the gains of GSM where so evident and this has to do with the zeal to embrace corporate governance. He believed that NITEL faltered, due to poor corporate governance strategy, 'NITEL was seen as a national cake but the private GSM companies imbibe corporate governance and are succeeding.'Besides, he said Nigeria Airways, Enugu Coal Mining Corporation, Nigerian Shipping Line, among others, exited the same way NITEL collapsed without exploring the huge opportunities around them, simply because of poor management, weak corporate governance and the hydra headed corruption.It will be recalled that, the federal government late 2011 cancelled the tender from the initial winner of the bid, New Generation Telecoms of China due to payment default, and twice extended the deadline for the runner-up, the Omen International Consortium to pay the required $105-million deposit on the sale. Omen also failed to meet up paymentLocal company, Transcorp bought a 75 per cent stake in 2006 in NITEL for $750 million during an earlier privatization sale, but the government reclaimed the stake in 2009 following several years of neglect.Since then there have been several aborted attempts to sell the company.
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