Reps probe BPE’s planned privatization of Afam Power Plc

Against the backdrop of economic misfortune trailing the privatization of generating companies in the past, House of Representatives has concluded plans to probe  the planned privatization of Afam Power Plc, to check the ugly trend and restore the  firm’s economic  value.

This was the high point of a motion sponsored by Hon. Ayodele Oladimeji at the plenary of the Green Chamber recently.

Entitled: ‘Need to investigate the planned privatization of the Afam Power Plc. by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) as a dilapidated Asset’,  the five-paragraph motion is a case study in revitalizing an ailing enterprise.

The introductory rite of the motion goes down memory lane by reminding  one that the “Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE)  has resumed the privatization, as dilapidated asset, or a scrap on a fast-track transaction of Afam Power Generation Company, earlier suspended, as one of the means to finance  the 2018 Budget.”

Paragraph two x-rays a comparative case study in similar privatization in which Sapele Power Plc and Ughelli Power Plc, privatized by BPE in 2013, “in the same manner as the planned privatization of Afam Power Plc… both are now in dire financial constraints along with other Generating Companies (GENCOS) resulting in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s intervention with N701 billion payment Assurance Guarantee due to expire in December, 2018.”

The discernment in the third paragraph bemoans inadequacy of “gas and weak infrastructure plaguing the existing GENCOs in the wake of current liquidity crisis” and other “generated energy” challenges.

Disturbed that “… the sale of Afam Power Plc as a dilapidated asset on a fast-track  transaction will not yield  the result envisaged by the Federal Government…”, Hon. Oladimeji, who is reputed for outspokenness of matters  of public importance, sends a wake-up call to the many patriotic voices of well-meaning Nigerians in the concluding paragraph, urging the “the National Council on Privatization to immediately suspend the  process of privatizing Afam Power Plant on a fast–transaction basis to allow for completion of the repairs of its phases 4 & 5 machines as well as the construction and rehabilitation of Afam Power Plant Road being undertaken by the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to enhance its value.”

To wrap up the two-point prayer advocacy, the motion mandates the Reps Committee on Privatization and Commercialization to do the needful in collaboration with BPE to remedy the situation.