Strong indications emerged on Wednesday that consortium of
13 banks, involved in Etisalat Nigeria’s
$1.2bn loan is seeking the Federal Government’s
intervention to investigate the management.
A management source close to the banks said in Lagos that
the banks want the government, through the EFCC, to wade into the matter, by
investigating what the company did with the loan.
The source alleged that the loans were siphoned and needed
to be investigated by the EFCC, noting, there was no proof of what the company
did with the loan.
He said that the affected banks had rolled out a lot of
viable options to Etisalat for the loan to be restructured, but was rejected by
the company.
The source said that the banks were not into
telecommunications and had no intention of running Etisalat.
“All we want
is to recover the loans; we cannot write off the loans as being demanded by
Etisalat, because the company is viable,”
the source stated.
The source said that Etisalat wanted the banks to write off
the loan as non-performing, which was rejected because the company was doing
well.
According to the source, the company wants an injection of
new capital, and this has been suggested to the majority shareholder.
The source said the government should investigate the matter
with all seriousness, to dig out the truth.
UAE’s Etisalat
on June 20 said that it had been instructed to transfer its 45 percent stake in
Etisalat Nigeria to a loan trustee.
Etisalat said it had been notified to transfer its stake by
June 23. It said the stake had a carrying value of zero on its books.
In the last three months, Etisalat Nigeria had been in talks
with the consortium of banks, to restructure a $1.2bn-dollar loan, after
missing repayments.
The loan is a seven-year facility, agreed with 13 banks in
2013, to refinance a $650m loan, and fund expansion of the telecommunications
network.
Source - The Punch
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