Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja
The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has disclosed that it has received five bids from prospective core-investors for the acquisition of the Yola Electricity Distribution Company (YEDC) and Afam Electricity Generation Company- Afam Power Plc & Afam Three Fast Power Limited.
According to the privatisation agency, Quest Electricity Nigeria Limited and Sandstream Nigeria submitted proposals to acquire the Yola Disco while Diamond Stripes Consortium, Unicorn Power Generation Consortium and Transcorp Power are bidding for Afam Genco.
Sandstream submission was, however, found to be non-responsive as it failed to include a bank guarantee in line with the requirements in the Requests for Proposal (RfPs).
BPE said in a statement issued yesterday by its Head, Public Communications, Ms. Amina Tukur Othman, that the development forced the representative of Sandstream to take the bid back.
The statement quoted BPE Director General, Mr. Alex Okoh, as assuring the bidders that the evaluation of their bids would be subjected to the highest level of integrity test, culminating into the financial bids’ opening of the successful bidders.
Okoh said the evaluation committee would meet immediately to discuss and finalise the scoring criteria before commencing the evaluation process on Monday, March 18, 2019 and end on Thursday, March 21, 2019.
It would be recalled that 19 firms had indicated interest to acquire the Afam Power Company and the Yola Distribution Company (YDC) put up for sale by the federal government at the close of the submission of bids for the Expression of Interest (EOIs) at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, September 26, 2018.
The request for expression of interest in the two companies was published by the BPE in national newspapers on August 16, 2018 and after evaluation of the EOIs, 11 firms qualified for the next stage but only the five were successful.
Although Yola Distribution Company was successfully privatised and handed over to the core investor in 2013, a force majeure was declared in 2015 by the core investor citing insecurity in the North-east region of the country.
Following this, the company was duly repossessed by the federal government.
The transaction for Afam Power Generation Company on the other hand fell through due to the delay in signing the Gas Supply Agreement (GSAA) and the Gas Transportation Agreement (GTA).
In 2017 the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) gave approval for a fresh transaction to privatise the two power companies.
It is expected that the successful bidders will be responsible for operating the generation and distribution companies, making the necessary investments to improve the generation and distribution networks and customer service in line with the objectives of the Federal Government of Nigeria set out in the National Electric Power Policy (NEPP).
