There are strong indications of a shakeup at the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) Daily Trust on Sunday reports.
This is as the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) may have ordered some board members and some of the management officials of the company to vacate their positions between October 2020 and January 2021.
Our reporter gathered that BPE, which holds 40 percent of the Federal Government’s shares in the Distribution Company (DisCo), had directed some of the directors of AEDC to vacate office in what seems to be a means of resolving a lingering investors’ conflict.
AEDC was among the 10 DisCos privatised in 2013 by the Federal Government. It was acquired by KANN Utility Limited, a consortium comprising Xerxes Global Investments Ltd fronted by Ambassador Shehu Malami, a former Nigerian Ambassador to South Africa, and a co-investor, CEC Africa Ltd, headed by Mr. Siyanga Malumo, a Zambian.
The investors had selected experts along with the Director General of BPE, Mr. Alex Okoh, to make up the eight-member board of AEDC, led by the Chairman, Amb. Shehu Malami. More so, other top officials from both companies and BPE are part of the board of directors, including Mr. Malumo, the AEDC Vice Chairman. The management team of AEDC is headed by the Managing Director, Engr. Ernest Mupwaya, a Zambian.
Both Xerxes and CECA have been having a running battle over the number of appointees that should be in the management level, with Xerxes pushing for local content, while CECA had insisted it was the core investor, having brought more funding for the acquisition of the DisCo.
However, following the acclaimed BPE directive, some members of the management team and officials of the investing firms may be changing soon.
Engr. Abimbola Odubiyi, a Nigerian and Director, Corporate Services at AEDC from Xerxes, is said to be leaving by end of October. While the MD of AEDC, Engr. Mupwaya, has not had his tenure renewed after he assumed duty in 2016, he will be leaving by January 2021.
Some other expatriate management officials from CECA are affected and will be leaving by November ending. Among them are the Director of Risk and Compliance, Engr. Collins Chabuka; the Chief Information Officer, Mr Sam Kyakilika and the Technical Assistant to the MD of AEDC, Dr. George N’guni.
Meanwhile, this paper also gathered that the Chairman of CECA and Vice Chairman of AEDC, Mr. Malumo, may have transferred his shares to another Zambian investor for KANN Utility, the driver of AEDC.
A source privy to this said that with the development, the earlier directors of AEDC from CECA would have to leave for the new investor to bring in their officials.
When contacted on telephone, the Head, Public Communication at BPE, Amina Tukur Othman, requested for a text message for the Director General of the Enterprise, Mr. Alex Okoh, to respond to the enquiry.
“Please can you send me a text message so that I can forward it to the Director,” she noted, but BPE had yet to confirm this last night.
Meanwhile, Mr. Odubiyi’s mobile was not reachable, and a text message sent to his line was not responded to up to press time last night.
The AEDC CEO, Engr. Mupwaya, however, asked our reporter to redirect his inquiries to the Managing Director of CECA, Engr. Emmanuel Katepa.
However, Engr. Katepa was not immediately available, along with Xerxes and AEDC Chairman, Amb. Malami, as none of them responded to calls or text messages put across to them, up to the time of filing this report.
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