Johannesburg - Gijima Technologies, the black-owned information technology (IT) group, was one of 16 groups bidding for a 51 percent of Nitel, Nigeria's State-run fixed-line utility, Robert Gumede, the executive chairman of Gijima, said yesterday.
Gumede said the firm, which had to pay $50 000 to register its interest in the stake, was gunning for Nitel's cellular phone subsidiary, M-Tel.
Gijima and Arivia.kom, the State-owned IT firm, were also on the shortlist of firms bidding to convert Nigerians to a smart card identity document system ahead of the country's next elections.
The firms had submitted a tender of $400 million for the ID system and were also involved in developing an integrated IT system for the nation's court system.
"We know the Nigerian market as we have people on the ground in various areas of businesses. We are also involved in the rollout of Econet's network infrastructure," he said.
According to the terms of the acquisition process, the bidders were expected to have experience in managing at least 1 million fixed lines and the winner would have to install at least 2 million lines over three years. The remaining 49 percent stake in Nitel would be sold off to smaller investors over a three-year period.
Gumede said Gijima was not a network operator and became involved in Nitel's sale in the hope of bringing on board an international partner. - Sapa-INet-Bridge