OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The Bureau of Public Enterprises has named members of the interim management team for the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company.
A statement issued on Thursday outlined the interim management team to include Bada Akinwumi, as managing director; Sani Usman, chief business officer; Babajide Ibironke, chief finance officer; Donald Etim, chief marketing officer; and Femi Zacchaeus, chief technical officer.
The Abuja DisCo was recently taken over by the United Bank for Africa, UBA.
In approving the appointment of the new interim management for the AEDC, the BPE quoted the Chairman, NERC, Sanusi Garba, as saying that “It (the approval) is pursuant to the earlier fit and proper review of your (BPE’s) pool of nominees and in the context of business continuity framework of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry.”
The federal government had on Tuesday, described members of the sacked team as a disgrace to the country following inability to meet up with its obligations.
The NERC and BPE had said there had been an ongoing dispute among competing factions of the AEDC’s majority shareholder/core investor known as KANN Utility Company Limited).
They stated that the United Bank for Africa had acted as mandated lead arranger, underwriting the entire facility of $122m, about N20bn then for Kann Utilities acquisition of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company.
“During the course of the intractable crisis, the AEDC not only struggled to meet its obligations to the market under the terms and conditions of its licence but was also unable to meet its obligations to key stakeholders in the organisation including staff,” the government agencies stated.
This, according to them, culminated into the industrial action by members of the Nigerian Union of Electricity Employees that resulted in a total service disruption on December 6, 2021 for over 14 hours in AEDC’s network area.
They explained that the provision of electricity supply in AEDC’s network area was only restored after the intervention of the Minister of Power, NERC and BPE following an agreement with the union on the terms for the suspension of industrial action.
