#FOC business report
Citing people familiar with the situation, the newspaper said former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had pleaded with Nigerian officials last month on behalf of the telecoms company.
Africa’s largest mobile phone company was handed a $5.2 billion penalty in October, prompting weeks of lobbying that led to a 25 percent reduction to $3.9 billion.
MTN, however, was still not prepared to pay the fine having launched a court challenge in December, while insisting Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had no legal grounds to order the penalty.
It would be recalled that a judge in Lagos, had last month given MTN until March 18 to try and reach the out of court settlement with NCC over the fine, which equates to more than twice its annual average capital spending over the past five years.
MTN spokesman Chris Maroleng was not immediately available to comment.
Holder, who led the U.S. Justice Department from 2009 to 2015 and was one of President Barack Obama’s longest-serving cabinet members, returned to law firm Covington & Burling, where he was previously a partner from 2001 to 2009.
Only last week, Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, at a briefing in Lagos said, the commission was ready to talk with MTN on the issue as the idea was not to kill the firm but to have a vibrant telecoms industry.
He admitted it was a matter that needed to be resolved amicably.
It is however not clear whether Holder’s engagement would be to continue the legal battle or to lead the out of court settlement negotiation.
He further said the sum of N2.520 billion expected for specific projects are to be financed through other sources, once the TCN wheeling tariff captured in MYTO and the N2.1 billion is supported by the liquidity assurance being put in place by NBET.
On revenue generation for the year, the Ministry projected N18,591,126,622 as against N7,215,076,122.61 realised in 2015 fiscal year.
A breakdown of the revenue to be generated showed that NERC (self accounting agency) is to generate the sum of N16,907,215,700.65 in 2016 as against N4,846,154,386.55 realised in 2015; REA is to generate N110 million against N12,575,000; NEMSA is to generate N262,185,921 against N104,076,736.06; NBET is to generate N1.009 billion against N1.950 billion.
From the total sum of N1,115,480,907 approved for capital expenditure in 2015, the sum of N557,740,453.50 was released by the Federal Government, while from the total sum of N5.130 billion approved for capital expenditure for the Ministry and agencies and parastatals, namely Rural electricity Agency (REA), Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), EMSL, NAPTIN, NELMCO, TCN and NBET, only the sum of N3,114,130,411.12 was released, leaving shortfall of over N2 billion.
0 comments:
Post a Comment