Nigeria’s BPE to name winners of PHCN privatisation in October

• 11 years ago (2012-05-15)
• David Flin

Africa 303

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Nigeria’s Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) has said that the preferred bidders for the assets of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) will be announced in October, and that it hopes this privatisation will help to alleviate chronic electricity shortages. Nigeria plans to sell off 11 distribution and six generation companies as part of the privatisation plan.

BPE said that 152 potential investors have been sent transaction documents, and the bids will be vetted once they have been received. Chukwuma Nwokoh, Spokesman for BPE, said: “The announcement of the preferred bidder for the 17 successor companies by the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) will be made on or before October 23, 2012. BPE said that Nigeria’s economy could be growing at over 10 percent annually if it solved its power crisis, but it would need $15-20 billion of investment over the next three years.

Nigeria’s power ministry has said that it is confident that privatisation in the sector will be completed by October, and current power capacity of under 4000 MW can be boosted to 6000 MW by the end of the year, and to 10,000 MW by the end of 2013.