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BPE to open bids for NIPP plants January

By on December 25, 2013

The financial bids for the 10 power plants constructed by the Federal Government under the National Integrated Power Project will open in January, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mr. Benjamin Dikki, has said.

Dikki said this at the signing of the Share Purchase Agreement between the privatisation agency and two power companies that bought into the Kaduna Power Distribution Company and Afam Power Plc in Abuja on Monday.

He said the privatisation of the 10 plants would mark the complete transfer of the power sector to the private sector but would not imply that the government would not invest in the electricity industry again.

The BPE boss said the government would continue to make such investment until there was enough power for the people of the country.

He said, “Government should concentrate less on business and create a conducive environment for private operators to show their ingenuity.

“A few sectors that have been privatised show that the private sector can do much more than the government in business. If we exercise a little patience, we will see a lot of improvement in the power sector.

“There will be financial bid opening for the 10 NIPP plants in January. That will mark the transfer of the power sector to the private sector. However, it will not preclude the government from investing in the sector.”

With a bid of $260.05m, Taleveras had on July 31 beaten TES Power to emerge the preferred bidder for Afam Power Plc, the last of the generating companies carved out of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria.

Similarly, Northwest Power Limited had emerged the preferred bidder for the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, the only one remaining of the 11 distribution companies carved out of the PHCN.

During the signing ceremony, Chairman, Northwest Power Limited, Mr. Yusuf Abubakar, said the company would do everything possible to provide electricity for the people.

The Director, Televaras, Mr. Oghens Sanomi, said when the company must have finished the transformation of the power plant, it would be generating more than 1,000 Megawatts of electricity.

Afam Power Plc and Kaduna Electricity Distribution Plc were among the 17 PHCN successor companies that were earlier advertised for sale in December 2010, and both, along with the others, went through a tender process that culminated in the submission of technical and financial proposals in July 2012.

However, none of the bids received for Afam and Kaduna scored the minimum of 75 per cent required to progress to the financial bid stage. This compelled the National Council on Privatisation to order a rerun of the entire transaction.

 

 

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