Lebanon’s auction to manage Alfa and Touch has been postponed until 11 November, following a ruling by the Shura that Orascom should be allowed to participate. The Egypt-based investor had been disqualified from bidding after missing a deadline it said had been unclear.
The Lebanese government will open offers for its two mobile contracts on 11 November, having postponed the date to enable Orascom Telecom and Media (LSE:OTMT) to bid.
The Egypt-based investor had been excluded from bidding after missing an official deadline by a few hours, but may now participate following a ruling by the Shura, or State Council.
“The decision of the Shura Council dated 7 October cancelled the disqualification of OTMT from the [auction], hence OTMT [may now] participate,” the company confirmed.
Bids, due on 10 November at 9am Beirut time, will be opened on 11 November, according to the Ministry of Telecommunications website. The contracts will go into force on 1 January 2016.
Zain (KW:ZAIN) has confirmed that it too will bid, while local reports have suggested Orange (EPA:ORA) will as well. A spokesperson for Orange was not available for comment by press time.
OTMT has managed Lebanese operator Alfa under a build–operate–transfer (BOT) contract since 2002, while Zain has managed rival Touch, formerly known as MTC Touch, since 2004.
Maxis, Turkcell, Detecon and Vodafone had pre-qualified, but have since dropped out.
The auction had originally been scheduled to take place on 7 September, and then on 8 October, while OTMT went ahead with proceedings to overturn its exclusion.
An industry source noted that given the country’s political stalemate, there was a 50:50 chance that the cabinet would approve the result of the tender.
The Ministry of Telecommunications first brought up the possibility of opening up the tender process in 2013, having in the past renewed the contracts on a near annual basis.
Under the most recently available terms – from the 2011 renewal process – OTMT said it would receive approximately US$2.5m per month plus 8.5% of total revenue under its BOT contract. The full terms for the new contracts have not been disclosed.
Lebanon’s two-player telecoms sector has in the past been criticised as home to the world’s highest mobile tariffs, and for being corrupt and slow to implement upgrades such as 3G.
