Nigeria to privatise power by June 2011

• 14 years ago (2010-07-05)
• David Flin

Africa 306

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Nigeria is working at delivering a full-fledged private power sector by June 2011. The policy shift appears to be a key deliverable that the present government wants to have in place before the next election.

One senior government official said: “Expect the full privatisation of the 11 distribution companies, one transmission company, and the six generation companies. In other words, by June 2011, we expect to be handing over these companies and consequently the power sector to private investors.”

A task force has been set up by the President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan. This task force is being led by Barth Nnaji, Robotics Professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Science and Technology, and the Nigerian Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE). BPE will have the responsibility of selling off the government-owned power assets to private investors around the world. According to some reports, BPE intends to make the sale more attractive but ensuring that only assets and not liabilities will be sold. It is thought that the Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO) will take up all the liabilities of the existing power companies. The liabilities to be taken over by NELMCO include stranded debts, taxes, debts to contractors, power purchase agreements with AES, Shell and Agip. It will also handle other legacy issues.