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Reps panel queries NITEL, Pentascope deal, summons BPE chief
A LETTER alleging anomalies in the award of contract for the management of the Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL) has compelled the House of Representatives Committee on Communications to probe the deal.
Already, the panel has summoned the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), Dr. Julius Bala, to produce detailed profile of Pentascope International BV Private Limited, which won the contract.
Also to be produced by the BPE chief are names of firms, which responded to the invitation for expression of interest in managing NITEL.
Also, Bala is to give the names of the firms invited to participate in the due diligence and which submitted financial, operational, organisational, legal and commercial proposals after signing confidentiality.
The development, which occurred recently, places the BPE chief as the second public official to whom the House panel has had cause to issue summons in the Fourth Republic, following alleged refusal to honour two invitations on the same subject matter and after which a warrant of arrest would be issued by the Speaker. The first was the former Minister for Aviation, Dr. Kema Chikwe.
The summon is coming sequel to a letter received from KPN Royals Dutch Telecom alleging that any information which linked it with Pentascope in a subsisting technical agreement over NITEL is false.
In a statement by the Deputy Chairman of the committee Leo Okuweh Ogor and the Chairman of the sub-committee on NITEL, Nasiru Garba Dantiye, the panel claimed that by the wordings of the letter from KPN, the country is vulnerable to another failed management agreement akin to that of the Ajaokuta Steel Company and could find itself in legal tussles over the NITEL-Pentascope contract.
Ogor told newsmen at the weekend: "What we have gathered is that there has been misrepresentation of facts, which could put NITEL and the country in a mess if not straightened out.
"Bala has on two occasions failed to honour invitations by the Committee on the matter and rather sent officials that were not properly briefed to clarify the issues involved".
He said that the Committee required to know more about the professional telecommunication competence and expertise of Pentascope International BV Private Ltd that won the management contract.
Addressing journalists at the weekend, Dantiye also stated that the contract for Pentascope management of NITEL was awarded on the basis of a technical agreement it had signed with a huge telecom engineering concern, KPN Royal Dutch, but that the latter had written to the committee denying the existence of such agreement at present.
According to the committee, the letter it received from KPN and written by the firm's Divisional Legal Officer indicates that Pentascope has recruited the services of VW Network Bouw to assist in the network roll-out programme for NITEL.
Network Bouw as contained in the letter, had also been part of the KPN Royal Dutch Telecom as the network construction company for the whole of Dutch Telecom infrastructure.
But, according to the Reps, the letter sent to them from KPN claim that the company was not part of the agreement of February 26, 2003 between Pentascope and VW Network Bouw, which is supposed to be its component part.
According to Dantiye, information reaching the House on the matter is that Pentascope is a mere consultant without the technical expertise.
His words: "Information available to us is that the company managing our national telecom provider is a small company not quoted in the Stock Exchange of its country with an annual turnover of less than EU 20 million.
"Worst of all is that lawyers of the Dutch telecom company with which they signed agreement to execute technical work for them have written to us. The summary of their letter is that there are legal anomalies."
Dantiye added that the committee was at a loss over why the BPE Director-General is finding it difficult to produce the contract agreement with Pentascope.
The committee sent back officials delegated by Bala to represent him before it last week.`
Guardian Server 1a:2Tuesday:Text:Pentascope P. 1 14/9/04
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