3rd March, 2014
Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has set 7 March for privatisation of its 10 National Integrated Power Plants, NIPPs located in different parts of the country.
In a statement released on Monday and signed by Chigbo Anichebe, its spokesperson, the privatisation agency said 42 companies has already been pre qualified to bid for the power plants at a recent joint meeting of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) chaired by Vice-President Namadi Sambo, and the Governing Board of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC).
“At the meeting of the opening of the financial bids, 42 pre-qualified bidders out of 66 bidding consortia for the 80 per cent equity in the 10 NIPP power plants was approved.
“The 42 pre-qualified bidders met the criteria set in the Requests For Proposal (RFP), and passed the due diligence verification conducted on technically qualified bidders.’’
BPE also said 66 proposals were earlier received on November 8, 2013 from prospective investors interested in the 10 NIPP plants, but were short-listed to 42.
“An inter-agency evaluation team, including security agencies met from November 12 to November 22, 2013 to evaluate the proposals.
“The evaluation report was subjected to scrutiny of the Joint Transaction Committee and the Joint Technical Transaction Committee before approval by the Joint NCP/NDPHCN Board meeting.’’
In order to be deemed technically qualified, bidders must meet the financial and quality of business plan set out by the committee on privatisation.
The 10 power plants for privatisation are Alaoji, Benin, Calabar, Egbema, Gbarain, Geregu, Ogorode, Olorunsogo, Omoku and Omotosho.