The Federal Government (FG), on Monday, disclosed plans to put up for sale, 216 non-core power assets in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).
It said this is to effectively manage liabilities in the sector by disposing off these assets.
The Managing Director(MD), Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO), Mr Adebayo Fagbemi, made the disclosure when the Senate Committee on power, led by its Chairman, Senator Gabriel Suswam paid an oversight visit to two of the assets, which is currently being occupied by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), Abuja.
He said there would be disposed off in three batches, stating that the first batch will cover sales of 52 assets.
According to Fagbemi, in line with the Procurement Act, the entire assets cannot be put in the market for sales at once.
He said this was because: “one of the key requirements in the procurement Act is that, you will offload as at the time you have the best of value, so if you put everything in the market, it can be cumbersome.
“it is also to ensure that you get a value as at a current period because valuation is actually periodic, you cannot leave it for too long.”
He added that the second and third batches are 106 and 58 assets respectively.
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The MD noted that the total number of assets were transferred to the Company by the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), while also adding that; “we have already advertised them to the Nigerian public. If you check adverts in June 2018, you will see that we have advertised for valuers and sales agents.
“The process is almost concluded and we have already gotten approval for the sales guideline which would soon be made public to the Nigerian public.”
Also, he described the non-core assets as those that are not critical to power operations.
These according to him are; “buildings, lands, jetty, golf course, guest houses. These are part of what accumulated and were called non-core assets.”
Earlier, the Managing Director, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) unfolded plans to purchase two of the assets it is currently occupying.
He also affirmed that the DisCo was owing NELMCO rent which has accrued since 2013.
“It is an oversight tour on NELMCO. They are touring the assets that belong to NELMCOand we happen to be occupying two of the assets and we are interested in procuring them because there is now a process to acquiring these assets.
“AEDC is owing NELMCO, and we are in discussion with them to offset this and it is part of our seriousness that we are engaging them in buying the buildings. We have been owing them since take over,” he said.
On his part, Chairman of the Committee, Senator Suswam noted that the National Assembly (NASS) seeks to help address some of the challenges threatening the power sector.
According to him, infrastructure deficits is also a contributing factor to the inefficiencies in the industry.
His words: “The essence of privatisation was to create efficiency in the sector, unfortunately, the process itself started on a faulty note. Some of the parameters used were a bit faulty and so the sector has been encumbered with challenges that would have been avoidable.
“So what we are doing at the National Assembly (NASS) is to identify the poor challenges so that we can help the executives in addressing them.
“First, the infrastructural deficit is in the sector. The DisCos and GenCos were told that those assets were in order but were not. So when they took over, they encountered some of these challenges and that is what has led to the inefficiencies that we are experiencing in the sector.”
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