9mobile acquisition, Teleology Holdings is expected to undergo exercises to test its technical and financial capabilities.
According to the Nigeria Communications Week, the Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Umar Danbatta affirmed that the commission will look into the technical capacity of Teleology before approving the acquisition.
Umar claimed that the technical evaluation would be after the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN) is done evaluating the financial standing of the company, that the acquisition would not be approved without the evaluation process.
“The license and operational spectrum will not be transferred if a preferred bidder falls short of the technical evaluation of NCC. So far, NCC is yet to conduct the technical evaluation,” Danbatta said.
We recently reported that NCC confirmed receiving $50 million from Teleology Holdings as down payment to seal the acquisition of 9mobile. An announcement that came as a surprise, because the commission alongside CBN had denied an earlier news about a down payment.
The payment of the remaining $450 million is not all that’s required for Teleology Holdings. The company needs to scale the financial and technical capacity hurdles. It appears both CBN and NCC are putting the cart before the horse. One wonders what would have happened if the preferred bidder had completed the payment few days after the initial down payment.
This brings the concern about the Nigerian government’s interest in the entire process. Or we can just conclude that NCC wants 9mobile to be acquired by the reserved bidder — Smile Communications?
Danbatta further claimed that the preferred bidder emerged with the full participation of the commission. But the new development about the evaluation process states otherwise.