Nitel/Mtel Creditors Tackle Finance Ministry Over Unpaid Claims

…Seek Tinubu’s Intervention

Creditors to the defunct Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (Nitel), and its mobile subsidiary, Mobile Telecommunications Limited (M-Tel), are at war with the Federal Ministry of Finance over their unpaid claims.

The creditors have appealed to President Bola Tinubu to intervene in the matter, with a view to prevailing on the Finance Ministry to release their money.

The creditors, about 186 of them, have lamented that 10 years after Nitel/Mtel was liquidated, they have yet to receive the money for contracts they executed for the defunct firms.

They complained that despite the fact that the federal government had released funds to the Finance Ministry for part settlement of their claims, the Ministry has yet to comply with the directive.

THE WHISTLER gathered that the federal government had released N6 billion to the Finance Ministry to pay the creditors through the liquidator.

The N6 billion was part of the huge debts owed to the defunct Nitel for services rendered to the various MDAs prior to the liquidation of the firms.

In a brief to the creditors, the Nitel/Mtel liquidator, Otunba Olutola Senbore, said he had submitted all the documents requested by the Finance Ministry to enable it release the funds.

Senbore said he submitted verifiable documents filling six (Ghana Must Go) sacks to the Finance Ministry, but he had yet to get any positive response from the Ministry.

The fund is meant to be released to the liquidator for onward disbursement to the creditors, based on the amounts standing to their credit.

Natcom Consortium, which acquired the core assets of Nitel/Mtel, had, in March 2015, paid up the $225.5 million price at which the firms were sold.

However, the $225.5 million, which exchanged for about N51 billion at 2015 exchange rate, was not enough to offset the creditors’ claims, which stood at about N300 billion.

Not a few of the creditors have died while awaiting payment of their claims since 2015 while a few others are battling debilitating health challenges.

Some of them have had their properties confiscated by banks for defaulting in payment of loans they obtained to execute contracts with Nitel/Mtel while the firms were still in operation.

Obviously frustrated by the actions of the Finance Ministry, representatives of the creditors said they are scheduled to meet with their legal counsel, Ola Olanipekun SAN, on Tuesday, March 11, to decide the next line of action.

While lamenting their predicament, the creditors observed the pattern of the federal government’s indebtedness to publicly owned service sector over the years.

“It is this same culture of unbridled indebtedness by the government that killed NEPA/PHCN, Nigeria Airways and many other public enterprises in the country,” one of the creditors who pleaded anonymity said.

Nitel/Mtel Creditors Tackle Finance Ministry Over Unpaid Claims is first published on The Whistler Newspaper