THE Nigerian Telecommunications Limited has said that the recent action of Vmobile in dragging it to court over its indebtedness is a non-issue. Tayo Ekundayo, NITEL’s General manager in charge of Corporate affairs told Vanguard last week in Abuja that government’s 51% shareholding in NITEL is worth over USD 1.73 billion (about 233.6 billion ) and sees no reason why Vmobile should threaten to liquidate it over what he called an unreconciled debt of N3billion.
Ekundayo further asserted that presently other private telecommunications operators owed it over N9 billion out of a total debt of N20 billion which is currently being owed NITEL.
NITEL therefore posited that for Vmobile to seek for its liquidation over what it termed as unreconciled debt N3 billion, is not a good business practice.
“How much is N3 billion compared to the net worth of NITEL?”, he asked, saying that the action of Vmobile amounts to “killing a fly with a sledge hammer.”
The NITEL image-maker also denied that NITEL had received any summons over the issue, stressing that if it did come, it would be tackled accordingly.
He explained the NITEL’s position with Vmobile over the debt issue further: “V- mobile has approached us over the debt this year, and we agreed to have a Call Detail Record (CDR) of our network to reconcile V-Mobile claims, and how much Vmobile would also pay to us for their calls that terminated in our network”, he said, adding that, “it is a complex procedure that need be done with carefully, which we are still doing”.
Ekundayo, further explained that the Interconnect fee is charged both ways for calls that terminate on each others terminal, but that NITEL was pursing the N9 billion owed it by PTOs acceptable business practice, not seeking for their liquidation.
Vmobile, one of the leading GSM companies in Nigeria, was exclusively reported in Vanguard to have gone to court seeking for the liquidation of the national carrier over its indebtedness to it in unsettled interconnect bills since 2000.
The company said that it had to take the drastic decision after exhausting all other reasonable avenues to get the company to liquidate the debt put at N3billion.
Vmobile explained that the debt arose from interconnect charges with accrued interest which the National Operator has not been able to settle fully since 2002.
The company further indicated that its decision to take to the courts to institute a winding up process on NITEL arose from the apparent lack of seriousness on the part of NITEL to settle the debt.
Giving an overview of the state of discussion with NITEL over the debt, Vmobile indicated that it wrote to the company on August 6, 2004 through it Chief Finance officer asking for the debt to be settled, but when no reply was forthcoming, it had to write to its Chief Executive on the 6th of September, where it told the CEO that the company’s refusal to settle the debt after several demands, amounted to anti-competitive conduct and could impair its ability to expand its network and improve on its service quality.
Three weeks later, Vmobile said that NITEL replied with a not-so-cheery news through a letter from its Chief Finance Officer, Mr. Graham Moss, who stated that NITEL was “obtaining an update of where our two companies are in reconciliation process of agreeing and accounting for chargeable traffic between us and will revert with that position”, claiming that NITEL was “making arrangements to settle the resulting net amounts due for telephony traffic interconnecting our networks.”
Vmobile was irked to realize that NITEL failed to do so after a month, leading to the decision to seek redress in the court of law.
Apart from Vmobile, MTN Nigeria also three weeks ago, threatened to unplug NITEL from its network unless it settled a N5 billion bill it was owing it on interconnect.
On several occasions, MTNN was said to have met with senior executives of NITEL to try and work out a payment structure that would ensure that the financial resources of both organizations were not overburdened. MTNN was however constrained to reconsider this approach, our sources said, as NITEL had severally reneged on proposed comfortable payment agreements.
In a letter to NITEL dated September 22 and addressed to its CEO, Rein Zwolsman, MTNN has said: “In accordance with the agreement for interconnection, as more fully set out in condition/clause 4.11 of the agreement concluded in September 2001 with NITEL, MTNN was constrained to issue a notice of disconnection with immediate effect. Consequently, unless payment of the full amount is made within 30 days, we shall have no choice but to reduce the facility availed to the NITEL network.”
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