The joint Committees on Power and Privatization/ Commercialization of the House of Representatives began investigations into the botched privatization of five power plants owned by the Nigeria Delta Power Holding Company of Nigeria NDPHC which the Bureau of Public Enterprises BPE carried out in 2013 and is set to sell

At the investigative hearing, the Committee dismissed Mr. Yunana Jack Bello who came to represent the Director-General DG of the BPE Mr. Alex Okoh for his inability to provide all the request documents.

Chairman of the House probe panel Hon. Magaji Da’u Aliyu in opening remarks said that the House mandated the joint committee to engage with stakeholders on the move to sell the power plants and to report back with recommendations.

The lawmaker further stated that the power sector reform programme is on course and the privatization could either make or mar it as BPE had commenced the process of the plant’s sale.

Also in a remark while declaring open the hearing, representative of the House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, Hon. Toby Okechukwu said that the power sector had been a sector that had failed and could not cater to the teaming number of Nigerian people.

He noted that the power sector is a critical sector of the national economy and called for concerted efforts by all stakeholders to get it right in the sector.

In a presentation, the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company NDPHC Mr. Chiedu Ugboh stated that despite the abundance of gas resources in Nigeria, the National integrated Power Plants, NIPP suffer starvation from gas supply to power their operations.

The NDPHC boss also said that despite the company’s capacity to generate more than 5000 megawatts of electricity, it is compelled to generate just 700 megawatts for sale due to lack of distribution capacity by the distribution companies.

He also stated that even the 700 megawatts are irregular adding that the situation is killing the machines making them use more fuel.

On the constraints faced by the company in its operations, he said the major one faced by it is distribution capacity and unavailability of gas.

“We have been to many places to look for gas, even in Geregu, we don’t have a single molecule of gas. Papalanto, the same thing. There’s no gas anywhere to run these plants which is a huge constraint”, the MD told lawmakers.

Speaking on the company’s existing assets and the intervention it has made, the MD said: “The NDPHC has 10 power plants with the generation capacity of over 5000 megawatts. In addition to power generation, NIPP also intervenes in transmission projects, of which we have 41 of them.”

“We added 6460MVA and 2686 kilometers of high tension kV lines for the Transmission Company of Nigeria.
TCN is using these assets now but the legal transfer is yet be done to get the TCN to pay for them.

“All states of the federation are beneficiaries of our distribution intervention. 374 distribution projects such as injection substations, over 4000 11kva lines which once finished will be transferred to the distribution companies for use following the legal transfer is completed.

We have deployed 20,000 units of a solar home system to homes in communities that hitherto never knew what electricity looked like.

However, the joint committee has summoned the director-general of the Bureau of Public Enterprise, BPE, Alexander Okoh to appear before it to explain the rationale behind the planned privatization of NIPP power plants under the Niger Delta Power Holding Company.

This was as the committee rejected the submission of the Bureau following observation by a member, Hon. Muraina Ajibola, who said the usual practice was to have heads and chief executive officers of agencies appear in person to make presentations under oath.

Meanwhile, the joint committee had asked NDPHC to submit all its expenditure profiles to its for legislative examination and insight for its report.

FG reassures investors of sale of 5 NIPP

The Joint Committee Chairman, Hon. Aliyu who chairs the committee on TT power ruled that the DG BPE should cause the appearance to personally explain the role played by the Bureau in the planned privatization of NIPP plants.

Hon. Muraina Ajibola observed that it’s an age-long parliamentary practice to have heads of MDAs make presentations to the Parliament on matters under investigation.

The lawmaker had said that the reason for his position was that evidence given by lesser officers may in the future have issues of capacity or capability to give such evidence asking the panel to seek evidence they can rely on to make valuable recommendations to the House.