Pentascope International, the management contractors for the Nigerian Telecommun-ications Limited (NITEL), has made public, a five-prong restructuring programme, targeted at transforming NITEL into a leading telecommunications group in the country.

Marcel Ririassa, Managing Director of Pentascope Interna-tional in a chat with newsmen yesterday in Abuja, listed his company's programmes for NITEL to include a network roll out aimed at modernising and expanding the network infrastructure, an internal restructuring programme aimed at internal cost efficiency and a human development programme aimed at developing and utilizing mix of skills and talents available in NITEL.

Other programmes are a marketing and sales project aimed at transforming the telecom company from a technology driven company to a market-driven customer-oriented one, able to face the competition, as well as a financial management programme which would be achieved through the introduction of an adequate management information system.

Regarding the network programme, Ririassa explained that emphasis would be placed in four areas including the modernisation and expansion of the transport network, providing backbone capacity for current and future telecommunications operators service providers and private networks as well as the modernisation and expansion of local access and switching networks to achieve a higher degree of capacity utilization and substantially improved network reliability.

Emphasis, he said, would also be placed on the deployment of a national network management function to monitor and control reliability and services of the national network infrastructure and aggressive roll-out of GSM network to ensure significant market positions.

The internal restructuring programme, he added, would focus on the organisation including implementation of process management with higher attention for customer care, billing network management and quality assurance. To this end, emphasis would be placed on right sizing of staff, resource management and staff development programmes, implementing operational support systems and introducing a process driven organization based on three strategic business units and corporate functions for finance, legal and human resources.

Stressing the company's belief in the importance of balancing the mix of skills imported with the knowledge and cultural understanding that already exists within NITEL, Ririassa explained that the human development programme aims to motivate and train staff to bring up and develop their talent.

The programme covers workers empowerment, employment equity, and sound labour relations, in a new NITEL that is an attractive phase to work with good career opportunities.

He added that the company would abide by any existing labour laws and that restructuring did not necessarily mean that staff would be laid off. "There will be changes but it shouldn't be a threat to people," he stated.

The financial management programme is to be achieved via the installation of a management information system (MIS), which would greatly impact and improve operations such as investment analysis, budget preparation, budget allocation, and performance monitoring of the various business units.

Speaking on the marketing and sales programme, Ririassa stated that there is particular need for M-Tel to make up for lost time in order to regain market share from the competition. The focus for the fixed market is to increase the range of products and services available especially to the business sector and improvement in NITEL's market perception regarding the reputation of NITEL and the quality and availability of services.

Similarly, the mobile market which has been identified as being in the growth stage, is to witness aggressive sales promotion during the first two years in order to gain market share as well as market expansion which is dependent on the network expansion to ensure that supply meets the demand.

He however admitted that Pentascope alone would not be able to execute the business plan so that subcontracted parties in co-operation with NITEL would implement some aspects of the programme.

The Pentascope boss stated that they were elated to have come to the end of "a professional rigorous fair and transparent bidding process".

In spite of the challenging operating circumstances, Pent-ascope is confident about achieving "the ambitious turnaround project designed for NITEL" because of their experience in transforming Dutch Telecom's operator KPN from a public entity into a highly competitive service and technology driven corporation among other such relevant worldwide experiences.

Pentascope took over NITEL last Tuesday amid protests by workers of the telecommunications company in several states across the country