The National Council on Privatization (NCP) has approved the liquidation of Nitel and M-tel. The NCP, chaired statutorily by Vice President Namadi Sambo announced Olutola Senbore & Co as the successful liquidator.
Briefing newsmen at the end of its 5th meeting in 2013 held at the State House, Abuja, the Minister of State for Finance, Yerima Ngama, said M-tel will be sold as a ‘going concern’ after assessing its worth. This he explained means the eventual buyer must retain the business of telecommunication.
“We are also happy to announce that at last, a liquidator has been appointed for NITEL and M-TEL and this liquidator was reached after several bids were received from about eight companies.
“At the end of the day, five companies were pre-qualified and after analysis, we picked a successful liquidator, Olutola Senbore and Co. He is now the successful liquidator,” the Minister said.
According to the Minister, who was flanked by the Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Benjamin Biki, the NCP also approved the list of successful companies for the privatization of the Afam Generation Company (Genco) and Kaduna Distribution Company (Disco) that were inconclusive when other Gencos and Discos were sold off.
He said seven companies have been cleared to proceed to the financial bid stage for the Kaduna Disco. They are: Axis Power Distribution Ltd, NAHCO Consortium, INCAR Consortium, Aiteo Consortium LEDA Consortium, Northwest Power Ltd and Copperbelt Consortium.
In the case of Afam Genco, three companies emerged successful while one was disqualified. Those cleared to proceed to te financial bid stage are Primeniza Energy Ltd, TES Power Ltd and Talevares Group.
Other decisions taken were approving funds for the Bulk Trader to the tune of N50 billion, another N9.55 billion for BPE to carry on with its activities, as well as approving the national parks, national stadia and river basins for privatization.
“We have also approved for the BPE 59.55 billion naira out of the proceeds of the sale of Egbin Power plant for some of the activities of both the bulk trader and BPE itself.
“For the bulk trader, 50 billion naira has been set aside and this will be the guarantee for the signing off of the power purchase agreement so that the generating companies will feel comfortable that they will have money to actually pay them.
“And also to proceed further with the privatization of the Power companies, the BPE also needs some money to continue with the several consultancy works, the sum of N9.55bn has been set aside to meet these expenses.
“We have also discussed the issue of the transfer from the pre completion liability of PHCN to the Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Company. Another memo will be presented in the next meeting to give us details of what the liabilities are and the amount involved but in principle, we have agreed for the BPE to continue with the transfer of these liabilities to NEMCO.
“We have also noticed that over the years the BPE has gained experience in preparation of companies for privatization so as part of efforts to conserve the internal competence and expertise we have in the BPE are now going to be conserved to prepare potential companies for privatization. These include the national park, the national stadium, and the river basin,” Ngama said.
