The Federal Government through the Bureau of Public Enterprises has commenced due diligence assessment of the 16 pre-qualified investors shortlisted for the acquisition of the five power plants under the National Integrated Power Project of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company.
But electricity consumers on Monday kicked against the proposed sale of the power assets.
The move to sell the power plants is coming against the backdrop of the House of Representatives’ directive to the BPE to halt the sale of the power plants located in Calabar, Cross River State, Ihorbor, Edo State, Olorunsogbo, Ogun State, Omotosho, Ondo State and Geregu, Kogi State.
The decision to halt the sales followed a motion of urgent public importance moved by the Chairman of the House Committee on Power, Magaji Aliyu (APC, Jigawa) on July 21.
Moving the motion, Aliyu said the power assets belonged to the three tiers of government with the Federal Government owning 47 percent while states and local governments own 53 per cent.
He added that the Federal Government was adamant about selling the assets to fund the deficit in the budget without the consent of the other tiers of government and others.
On July 8, 2022, The PUNCH reported that the Federal Government had shortlisted a total of 16 companies as pre-qualified entities for the privatisation of the five NIPP plants.
The government announced this at the Investor Pre-bid Conference for the privatisation of the five NIPP plants.
The Director-General, BPE, Alex Okoh, had outlined the 16 pre-qualified bidders to include Mota-Engil Nig, Amperion Power, Sifax Energy, Pacific Energy Company Ltd and Globeleq Africa Limited.
Others include Geoplex Drillteq Limited, Asfalizo Acquisition Ltd, Launderhill PJB, Lauderhill Tata, Unicorn Power Genco Ltd, Connaught Energy.
Services Ltd, ENL Consortium Ltd, Ardova Plc, Central Electric and Utilities Ltd, North South Power Consortium and Quantum Megawatt Consortium.
BPE officials
Officials of the bureau told our correspondent on Monday that the next stage of the process was the bid opening stage, but noted that the government was currently carrying out due diligence on the 16 pre-qualified companies.
“After the pre-qualification stage, the next phase will be the bids opening stage. So right now due diligence is still being carried out on the 16 companies that were pre-qualified,” said an official of BPE, who pleaded not to be named as he was not authorised to speak on the matter.
The source added, “The BPE with the advisers are carrying out due diligence on the 16 companies to know if they are capable of managing the power firms before we open the bids. So for now no date has been set for the bid opening.”
But power consumers kicked against the move to privatise the companies.
Speaking under the aegis of the Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, the power consumers described plans by the BPE to sell the power plants as “miscalculated action that has national security risks.”
They noted that the Special House of Representatives Joint Committees would meet this week to commence inquiry into the matter and urged the lawmakers to halt the move by BPE to sell the plants.
The President, NCPN, Kunle Olubiyo, a power expert who served in the National Technical Investigative Panel on Power System Collapses/System Stability and Reliability (June 2013), told journalists in Abuja that privatising the five plants would be self-serving.
“At this point, any such action is self-serving and at very best, a chronic form of national assets stripping coming at a time when the current President, Muhammadu Buhari is already on the verge of completing his tenure,” he stated.
“The NCPN said it had seen records of firms described as the bidders for the Geregu, Omotosho, Olorunsogo, Calabar and Benin-Ihovbor NIPP plants. However, some of the firms hardly have any experience in the business of power generation,” Olubiyo, who also served in the Presidential
Ad-hoc Committee on Review of Electricity Tariff in Nigeria (August 2020), stated.
He added, “The plants under the NIPP of the NDPHC have always served as infrastructure that provide power and national energy security.
During the COVID-19 pandemic when the private investors of other generation companies ramped down electricity generation due to low revenue returns, for instance, the NIPPs being public assets, provided Nigeria with the much-needed energy security and socio-economic stability as it had to ramp up power supply to avoid economic and administrative shutdown across the country. “So far, the private firms in the power sector have not fared better than the NDPHC Gencos which have their gas obligations, gas pipeline assets and have contributed to both transmission and distribution networks nationwide.”
Olubiyo stated that recently, gas producers allegedly made claims of a legacy debt of about $1bn, as these debts were accumulated over a long period of time.
He stated that if at any point the gas producers stopped supplying gas to Gencos, Nigeria could be plunged into darkness if the NIPP plants were sold off.
“Even when some of the NIPP/NDPHC Gencos have not been put to optimal use, the country is still seeing their impact on the national grid while serving as the nation’s energy security backups,” the NCPN president stated.
He noted, “The consumer network opposes any move to sell off five of the NIPP Gencos for now. We are not saying that the plants would not be sold at the appropriate prices and time in the future.”
There had been concerns about the proposed privatisation of the companies, but the BPE in July stated that it was handling the issues.
Okoh, the bureau’s boss, had told the 16 investors that litigations against some of the plants were baseless and frivolous as the bureau and the Niger Delta Power Holding Company were empowered by the bids’ provisions under NIPPs transaction to terminate bids that violated the ground rules.
He stated that the pre-qualification conference had critical stakeholders in the power sector including the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, Niger Delta Power Holding Company and Nigerian Bulk Trading Company in attendance.
Source: Guardian
