The consortium of 13 banks involved in Etisalat Nigeria’s USD1.2 billion loan has allegedly called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to investigate the management of the company.
A source close to the banks said that the banks want the government, through the EFCC, to wade into the matter, by investigating what the company did with the loan.
It is alleged that the loans were syphoned and needed to be investigated by the EFCC, noting, there was no proof of what the company did with the loan, NAN reports.
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 telecom company 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.
Recalled that the trouble for the company started when it could not service its USD1.72 billion loan it took to carry out network infrastructure upgrade with a foreign-backed guaranty bond. Etisalat Nigeria through its spokesperson, Dikko had complained that the devaluation of the Naira (NGN) has made it difficult for the company to service the loan.
