March 29, 2024

The House of Representatives has asked the Federal Government to suspend plans to sell the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited’s power plants until the lingering issues on the ownership of the firm are resolved.

The House also mandated its Committees on Power; and Privatisation and Commercialisation to investigate the planned sale of the plants owned by the NDPHC.

At the plenary on Thursday, the House unanimously adopted a motion of urgent public importance moved by Musibau Kolawole on the need to investigate the planned privatisation of the NDPHC.

Kolawole recalled that the NDPHC was incorporated under the Companies and Allied Matters Act as a private limited liability company, with shareholding fully subscribed to by the federal, state and local governments, with a mandate to manage the National Integrated Power Projects.

The lawmaker also recalled that the National Council of State and the National Assembly approved an initial funding of $25bn for the NIPP from the Excess Crude Oil Account, which statutorily belongs to the federal, state and local governments.

Kolawole further recalled that the Federal Government, in 2013, announced the proposed privatisation of some NIPP power plants owned by the NDPHC, with a plan to divest the proceeds in developing renewable power generation projects, adding that hybrid of challenges that bedevilled the power sector militated against the effort.

He also recalled that in April 2021, the Board of Directors of the NDPHC agreed to resolve all issues militating against the sale of the assets and considered a special budgetary intervention of $100m for improved offtake of the state of NDPHC’s stranded power.

The lawmaker said the Bureau for Public Enterprise recently announced the proposed sale of five NIPP assets in Cross River, Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Kogi states, with the aim of using the proceeds to fund the Federal Government budget deficit, adding that the assets under consideration do not belong exclusively to the Federal Government but the three tiers of government.

Kolawole, however, expressed concerns that the Federal Government did not take some vital issues into consideration such as the applicable policy and the appropriate legal framework or legislation under which the transactions will be implemented, as well as the laws relating to procurement or disposal of shares and assets, given the shareholding of the states and local governments.

He said the BPE, being a statutory body, can only act in accordance with its enabling legislation, the Privatisation Act, and considering that state governments assets can only be disposed of in accordance to state law, stressing that the state governments cannot validly accede to the application of a federal legislation to the divestment of their ownership interest in the NIPP assets.

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