Power: BPE to privatise 10 NIPPs in Jan

Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Benjamin Dikki, yesterday said the bureau will hold financial bid opening for10 National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) in January 2014 after approval of the technical committee of the National Council on Privatisation has been granted.
The financial bid opening, he said, will culminate the process of full privatization of the power sector. “Once that is concluded we would have come to a situation where the power sector is completely in private sector hands,” he said.
Dikki dropped the hint at the signing of Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) for the privatisation of Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company and Afam Generation Company, sold to Northwest Power Limited and Taleveras Group, bringing to an end the privatization of PHCN successor companies.
The federal government had in June this year, kicked off the process of privatisation of 10 gas-fired NIPP power plants. The plants are being jointly offered to private investors by the BPE and the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC). The intent of the privatization is to sell 80 percent stakes of the assets to the private sector, while 20 percent will be retained by the three tiers of government in the country, which are also the bonafide shareholders of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company.
On the signing of the SPA, he explained that the late agreement signing for Northwest and Taleveras when other successor companies of PHCN had been handed over to preferred bidders on November 1, was because the original winners of Afam Power Plant and Kaduna Disco, could not meet up the bid requirement, hence the cancellation that led to a repeat exercise, during which the two companies won outstandingly, and also met the requirements.
 The SPA details makes copious provision for payment, sanctions in terms of default on timeline and revocation in terms of failure to meet provisions in the agreement, material assets to be transferred and also guarantees.
Signing on behalf of North West Power Ltd preferred bidder for Kaduna Disco, its chairman Yusuf Hamisu Abubakar, pledged the company’s commitment to providing world class services to the area, promising to put personnel and resources to turn around the power plant.
Dikki had described the event as a success in terms of achieving the desired reforms in the power sector which began by the constitution of the Electric Power Sector Implementation Committee by NCP.
 This committee, he reiterated, was mandated to undertake a comprehensive study of the electricity power industry, resulting in the development of a power blueprint that was later to define government’s new direction for the achievement of a remarkable improvement in the power sector.
The BPE boss said that the approved National Electricity Power Policy document has contributed immensely to the liberalisation of the industry, thereby providing an enabling environment for the private sector investors to cash into the potentials in the sector.