BPE sets up transition committees for Afam, Kaduna

Towards the handover of the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company Plc and Afam Power Plc to core investors, the Bureau of Public Enterprises has set up a transition committees to manage the process.

The Head, Public Communications, BPE, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, disclosed this in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Monday.

Anichebe said the establishment of the committees was consequent upon the payment of 25 per cent of the bid offers by the two companies that emerged successful following the opening of the financial bids for both firms.

He explained that by the constitution of the transition committees, the core investors now had access to vital information on the running of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria’s successor firms, adding that they could not have control of the companies until they had completed the payment for the firms.

With a bid of $260.05m, Taleveras had on July 31, 2013 beaten TES Power to emerge the preferred bidder for Afam Power Plc, the last of the generating companies carved out of the PHCN.

The Taleveras consortium is made up of Alstom Nigeria Limited, an indigenous company involved in the supply, operation and maintenance of power turbines; Alstom Group, a French company involved in power generation and transport; and Taleveras Petroleum Trading BV, a British West Indies company involved in physical trading of crude oil and refined petroleum products. The Rivers State Government also has a stake in the consortia.

Similarly, Northwest Power Limited had emerged the preferred bidder for the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, the only one remaining of the 11 distribution companies carved out of the PHCN.

The bidders for the KEDC were judged by the Average Technical, Commercial and Collection Loss Reduction they proposed to achieve should they acquire the controlling equity in the company.

Northwest Power Limited, which emerged the preferred bidder for the Kaduna Disco, offered to reduce losses by 29.26 per cent. The second bidder, LEDA Consortium, offered an ATC&C of 26.71 per cent, while the NAHCO Consortium offered an ATC&C of 22.83 per cent.

Afam Power Plc  and Kaduna Electricity Distribution Plc were among the 17 PHCN successor companies that were earlier advertised for sale in December 2010, and both, along with the others, went through a tender process that culminated in the submission of technical and financial proposals in July 2012.