08 June 2013, Abuja – The Federal Government has set up three committees to oversees the sale of the 10 independent power plants being handled on behalf of the government by the Niger Delta Power Holding Companies, NDPHC.
This is the outcome of a meeting on Friday in Abuja between the Federal government, represented by the National Council on Privatisation, NCP, the NDPHC and the states, which are also part of the ownership of the plants.
The three committees are the Joint Evaluation Committee of the NDPHC and BPE, Joint Transaction Committee and the Joint Technical Committee.
Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State spoke on the establishment of the committees shortly after the meeting: “The joint evaluation committee of the NDPHC and BPE to evaluate the expression of interests and technical bids that will be submitted by the potential bidders”.
He added: “We also have the Joint Transaction Committee made up of the managing director of NDPHC as the chairman and the director general of BPE as the co-chairman and other members that will be selected.
“The third committee is the Joint Technical Transaction Committee which the Governor of Benue State was nominated to be the Chairman. We have prominent Nigerians, of course Mr. Atedo Peterside, the DG of BPE, the minister of Power and the MD NDPHC, among others.
“The final committee which is not a committee, so to speak, will be at the end of the transaction when everything is evaluated through these three committees I have mentioned, the final approval will come from the joint meeting of the NDPHC board and NCP to approve the final transactions.”
According to Suswan, the privatisation processes had already commenced with road shows in Lagos last week, and will move to United Kingdom, Hong Kong and round off in New York in order to enhance and generate more interests locally and globally so investors could invest in the plants.
Peterside, the chairman, NCP Technical Committee, said investors have already started showing interest following the earlier bids for the successor companies of the PHCN.
“As people know, there have been attention brought to the power sector in Nigeria arising from the transactions seeking to sell all the 11 Power Distribution Companies (DISCOs) in Nigeria and also to sell the PHCN-owned power plants.
“Because it was time to do this kind of transaction immediately after the whole world had already taken attention, all the major power companies are looking at Nigeria’s power sector.
“That is why we are hoping that we can get this transaction to move smoothly and build on the back on the earlier transactions and to generally help to galvanize the power sector in Nigeria and move it increasingly towards the private sector,” he said.
Also speaking, the minister of power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo stressed the importance of synergy in the privatisation process, saying “the joint committees comprising the NDPHC and NCP are all working very hard with the transaction advisers to ensure that best practices are observed in the whole of these processes”.
He said: “The interests already generated from the Lagos road show have excited all of us and it appears that we are really going to have a full house of people who are vying to buy one of these 10 plants.”