Abuja DisCo Shows Interest In NELMCO Assets After 7yrs Rent Default
By TAYO ELEGBEDE
Despite its inability to pay seven years rent it owed, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) said it is ready to purchase two of the assets of its landlord, the Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Company (NLEMCO)
AEDC owed NLEMCO seven years’ rent since 2013 but now ready to buy two NELMCO assets, which is inclusive of the 216 non-core power assets in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) that the federal government has intended to sell.
The AEDC Managing Director, Ernest Mapwaya made known their stand on the assets, at their premises when the Senate Committee on power, led by its Chairman, Senator Gabriel Suswam paid an oversight visit to two of the assets yesterday.
The Managing Director (MD), NELMCO, Adebayo Fagbemi, who conveyed the federal government’s intention to sell the non-core power assets said the move is to effectively manage liabilities in the sector by disposing of these assets.
He said the assets would be disposed of in three batches, stating that the first batch will cover sales of 52 of them, while the second and third batches would be 106 and 58 assets respectively.
Fagbemi, remarked that the total number of assets were transferred to the Company by the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), adding that they have already advertised them to the Nigerian public.
The NELMCO MD advanced that the plan to sell in batches is because, the entire assets cannot be put in the market for sales at once, as outlined by the Procurement Act,
“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. 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,” he added.
Describing what the non-core assets, Fagbemi explained they are those assets that are not critical to power operations, like buildings, lands, jetty, golf course, guest houses.
Senator Suswam, however, noted that the National Assembly (NASS) seeks to help address some of the challenges threatening the power sector, which according to him infrastructure deficits is also a contributing factor to the inefficiencies in the industry.
“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,” the senator stated.
The DisCos and generating companies (GenCos) he said 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, NASS, therefore, needs to identify the poor challenges so that we can help the executives in addressing them.”
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