Telecom Firm Petitions Minister over Exclusion in USP Fund
- By Abimbola Tooki
- Published April 28th, 2010
- News
- Unrated
SUBURBAN Telecom, a long distance operator in the Nigerian market, has petitioned Professor Dora Akunyili, minister of information and communications technology, against its exclusion from the award of a special fund under the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) project.
Suburban berated the Nigerian Communications Commission over what it called “the faulty process and lack of transparency in the award of the fund under the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) in the Wire Nigeria (Win) project.”
The company specifically alleged that the commission has awarded the project to Phase 3 Telecom which never participated in the bidding process and Multilinks-Telkom Limited, another successful bidder to the project.
The petition, dated April 16, 2010 and signed by Bruce Ayonote, group chief executive officer, Suburban West Africa Limited, noted that his company was one of the three pre-qualified bidders for a grant of funds to subsidise the roll-out of inter city optical fiber backbones that would facilitate the penetration of telecommunications services in Nigeria.
To the company’s surprise, however, Ayonote said as one of the three pre-qualified bidders for the fund, Suburban never received any further correspondence from the commission about its decision on the successful candidates for the Win programme. “Suburban participated in the bid and was never selected as one of the three pre-qualified bidders,” he said. “To date, Suburban has not been informed of the outcome of our bid nor have reasons been adduced why our bid was not successful.”
According to the petition, “what is more disturbing is that one of the purported winners, Phase 3 Telecom, a company which was not pre-qualified for the final phase of the negotiations eventually emerged as a successful bidder.”
Ayonote therefore crave the indulgence of the minister to look into the matter with the aim of investigating the entire process leading to the award of the Win Project by the NCC, ascertain how a so called transparent process could produce a winning bidder who was never pre-qualified and to compel the commission to uphold the tenet of transparency by adhering to the original process which pre-qualified three bidders of which Suburban Telecom was one.
BusinessWorld Intelligence, however, revealed that NCC may not have been aware of Suburban’s grievances before it decided to petition the minister on the issue. Reliable sources within the commission claimed ignorance of the development but insisted that the commission has its international best practices with which it uses in the award of its licences and projects. “As far as I know, we are not aware that Suburban has any grievances against us and we don’t know if they have written any petition to the minister,” the source said.
A principal officer of Suburban could also not confirm whether the management of the company made efforts to seek the commission’s explanation on the matter before it decided to petition the minister.
Suburban berated the Nigerian Communications Commission over what it called “the faulty process and lack of transparency in the award of the fund under the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) in the Wire Nigeria (Win) project.”
The company specifically alleged that the commission has awarded the project to Phase 3 Telecom which never participated in the bidding process and Multilinks-Telkom Limited, another successful bidder to the project.
The petition, dated April 16, 2010 and signed by Bruce Ayonote, group chief executive officer, Suburban West Africa Limited, noted that his company was one of the three pre-qualified bidders for a grant of funds to subsidise the roll-out of inter city optical fiber backbones that would facilitate the penetration of telecommunications services in Nigeria.
To the company’s surprise, however, Ayonote said as one of the three pre-qualified bidders for the fund, Suburban never received any further correspondence from the commission about its decision on the successful candidates for the Win programme. “Suburban participated in the bid and was never selected as one of the three pre-qualified bidders,” he said. “To date, Suburban has not been informed of the outcome of our bid nor have reasons been adduced why our bid was not successful.”
According to the petition, “what is more disturbing is that one of the purported winners, Phase 3 Telecom, a company which was not pre-qualified for the final phase of the negotiations eventually emerged as a successful bidder.”
Ayonote therefore crave the indulgence of the minister to look into the matter with the aim of investigating the entire process leading to the award of the Win Project by the NCC, ascertain how a so called transparent process could produce a winning bidder who was never pre-qualified and to compel the commission to uphold the tenet of transparency by adhering to the original process which pre-qualified three bidders of which Suburban Telecom was one.
BusinessWorld Intelligence, however, revealed that NCC may not have been aware of Suburban’s grievances before it decided to petition the minister on the issue. Reliable sources within the commission claimed ignorance of the development but insisted that the commission has its international best practices with which it uses in the award of its licences and projects. “As far as I know, we are not aware that Suburban has any grievances against us and we don’t know if they have written any petition to the minister,” the source said.
A principal officer of Suburban could also not confirm whether the management of the company made efforts to seek the commission’s explanation on the matter before it decided to petition the minister.
