The companies due for privatisation include three thermal plants – Geregu Power Plc, Sapele Power Plc and Ughelli Power Plc and two hydro plants – Shiroro Power Plc and Kainji Power Plc.
At the end of the opening of financial bids, the three thermal plants were sold for $633 million while the two hydro power plants would be taken over by two consortiums as concessions at $74,363,139 million.
This development is coming just as the ban on loans to 113 firms by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) heightened concerns over financing of the bids.
When the technical bids for the offers were formally opened in Abuja, Amperion Consortium, a consortium made up of Israeli-based BSG Resource Limited, State Grid Corporation of China and Forte Oil Plc, in which businessman, Femi Otedola, is the major stakeholder as local partner, emerged the preferred bidder for Geregu Power Plc with an offer of $132 million.
Transcorp and Wood Rock/Symbion/Thomasen PSL Power Consortium emerged preferred bidder for Ughelli Power Plc with a price of $300 million, while Amperion Consortium emerged reserve bidder with a price of $252 million.
Transcorp is chaired by former Chief Executive Officer of UBA, Tony Elumelu, as his company, Hiers Holdings, has the single largest stake in the conglomerate.
For Sapele Power Plc, CMEC/Eurafric Energy came out the preferred bidder with an offer of $201 million while JBN-Nestoil Power Services Ltd came out reserve bidder with an offer of $106.5 million.
For the hydro plants which are being given out by the NCP as concessions for initial period of 15 years, the bid for Kainji was won by Mainstream Energy Solutions Ltd.
The firm offered to pay an annual fee of $50,760,665 million.
It is also expected to pay an upfront commencement fee of $237,870, 000 million.
Shiroro Power Plc on the other hand was won by North South Power Company Ltd at a fixed annual fee of $23, 602, 484 million and a commencement fee of $111, 654,534.30 million.
North-South Power is believed to be backed by former military President, Ibrahim Babangida.
But the Mainstream and North South had no competitors for their bids, raising question marks in some quarters over the legitimacy of the sales.
Announcing winners of the bid, Chairman of the Technical Committee of the NCP, Atedo Peterside, said government was selling outright the Ughelli and Sapele Power plants, while it is only selling 51 per cent of the Geregu plant.
The two hydro power plants are being given out as concessions at initial periods of 15 years.
Peterside said to qualify to have its commercial bid opened, each bidder was required to furnish within 15 business days of official notification of technical qualification, a post qualification security in the form of a bank guarantee or a letter of credit.
He said for Geregu Power Plc, Sapele Power Plc, Ughelli Power Plc and Shiroro Power Plc, the post qualification security required from each bidder was $10 million whilst $15 million was required for Kainji Power Plc.
He said, “By the bid submission deadline of 5.00 p.m. on July 17, 2012, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) received 25 proposals from pre-qualified bidders, 22 bids for thermal Gencos and three bids for hydro Gencos.
“After the sorting of the bids, two bids that had no commercial proposals were rejected while the remaining valid 23 bids were assigned to the evaluating teams by balloting to ensure that no evaluator had any prior knowledge of which he/she would be evaluating.
“Out of the 23 bids that made it to the evaluation stage, 10 of the bids failed the first test of completeness and responsiveness.
“The remaining 13 bids were then subjected to full technical evaluation. Out of the 13 bids, eight scored the minimum 75 per cent that was required to proceed to the next stage.
“The bidders were then asked to submit the post-qualification bidders guarantee following the approval of the evaluation results by NCP,” he said.
Peterside, however, warned that the emergence of the preferred bidders was not final, as they would have to scale some stipulations by the NCP and meet some requirements before they can fully take over the plants.
“The bidders are going to undergo further verification and if at any stage any new information is discovered by the NCP, they could be used against them,” Peterside said.
However, the bid for Afam Power Plant, according to Peterside, was not opened as all the three bidders failed to meet the stipulated guidelines for the bids.
In her remarks, Director General of the BPE, Bolanle Onagoruwa, reaffirmed that the NCP would continue to ensure that the electricity sector privatisation transactions were completed to the best of internationally accepted standards.
She said: “We have come so far and achieved so much since mid 2010 when this administration restarted the electricity sector reform programme.
“With your support and with the strong desire to serve our patient and long suffering citizens of Nigeria, even as we know that there is yet more hard work ahead and tough days to come, we will continue to strive mightily to achieve even more and ultimately succeed.”
However, there are concerns over financing difficulties after the CBN banned loans to 113 firms this week for failing to pay previous debts.
The affected companies include Forte Oil and other firms bidding for power assets.
Meanwhile, members of the nation’s capital market community have once more renewed their calls for the listing of the firms that eventually win the bids for the power plants on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
Rising from its regular quarterly meeting of the Capital Market Committee (CMC), comprising members of the component sub-sectors in the market in Lagos on Tuesday, the operators noted that the power sector is a strategic component of the economy.
Addressing the press at the end of the meeting, Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arunma Oteh, explained that listing the companies would enhance good corporate governance, besides transparency in their operations.
Speaking on behalf of the market stakeholders, Oteh said the power sector if properly harnessed has the capacity to become bigger than the telecoms industry.
Listing the companies, she believes, will ensure that the companies were properly valued, besides the fact that wealth can be redistributed, as Nigerians become part owners of such companies, just as the market would become further diversified.
Power cost, she stressed, currently constitutes over 40 per cent of the operating cost of many companies in the country, noting that sustaining the government’s ongoing economic reforms will ensure that the stock market’s growth so far, would be sustained.
Culled from Dailyindependent
No comments:
Post a Comment