NITEL/Mtel owes N80bn - Workers

Gbola Subair and Soji Eze Fagbemi Abuja - 25.02.2008

The workers of NITEL/M-tel have alleged that the companies have over N80 billion liabilities.

As a result of this and other mismanagement allegations, the workers have called on the Federal Government to prosecute Transcorp and deny it any stake in the communication outfit.

The Senior Staff Association of Communication, Transport and Corporation (NITEL branch), in a letter addressed to the President Umaru Yar’Adua, entitled: “The NITEL/M-tel Transcorp left behind,” disclosed that about N80 billion commercial liabilities were still hanging on the neck of NITEL/M-tel, including the arrears of staff salaries for four months.

Apart from this, the workers also alleged that there were several court judgments against NITEL/M-tel with consequent costs running into billions of naira due to Transcorp’s inability to manage and coordinate the cases.

The workers also alleged that Transcorp left behind, as core investor, a highly depleted network of less than 80,000 connected lines in the case of NITEL and only 50,000 GSM mobile lines in he case of M-tel.