The House of Representatives has asked the federal Government to suspend the planned sale of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC) power plants across the country until lingering issues on the matter are resolved, especially as regards ownership of the NDPHC.
The House also mandated its Committees on Power and Privatization and Commercialization to investigate the planned sale of the NIPP power plants owned by the NDPHC.
This followed a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Rep. Kolawole Musibau (APC, Lagos) on the need to investigate the Planned Privatization of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) Power Plants by the government.
He said the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (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 (NIPP).
He said the National Council of State and the National Assembly approved an initial funding of US$25 billion for NIPP from the Excess Crude Oil Account (ECOA) which statutorily belongs to the Federal, State and Local governments;
He disclosed that in 2013, the Federal Government announced the proposed privatization of some NIPP power plants which are owned by the NDPHC, with a plan to reinvest the proceeds in developing renewable power generation projects, adding that hybrid of challenges that bedeviled the power sector militated against the effort.
He said further that in April 2021, the Board of Directors of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC) agreed to resolve all issues militating against the sale of the assets and considered a special budgetary intervention of One Hundred Million Dollars ($100,000,000) for improved offtake of the state of NDPHC’s stranded power.
He said that the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) recently announced the proposed sale of five (5) 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.
The lawmaker expressed concern 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, the State Governments cannot validly accede to the application of Federal Legislation to the divestment of their ownership interest in the NIPP asset.
