The federal government has disclosed that plans are on to sell off 216 non-core assets of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and use the proceeds in offsetting the company’s liabilities and generating revenue for the industry.
The managing director of the Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO), Mr Adebayo Fagbemi, made the disclosure yesterday when he led the Senate Committee on Power on oversight tour some of the facilities under the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) in Abuja.
He explained that the Non-Core assets are those assets that are not too critical to the business of power, such as buildings, lands, jetty, golf course, guest houses.
Fagbemi said the sales of the 216 assets were being done in three phases after it placed public notices in June 2018 to appoint valuers and sales agents.
He said, “The first phase of the assets that we are bringing out for sale is 52, there is another second batch of 106 assets and the third batch is 58. The assets sale will enable the agency to offset some of these liabilities.”
NELMCO was established to manage the industry’s liabilities inherited from PHCN at privatisation in 2013.
The managing director (MD/CEO) of AEDC, Engr Ernest Mupwaya who spoke after the Senate Committee visited AEDC Customer Centre at Wuse 2 and its Central Store at Zone 5, which are still NELMCO’s property, said AEDC owed rent for the property since November 2013.
“AEDC owes NELMCO rent of the assets and we are in discussion with NELMCO to offset it as part of our seriousness to acquire the assets. We have owed this rent since the privatisation was held,” Mupwaya noted.
Chairman of the Committee, Senator Gabriel Suswam, said the committee members visited the facilities to verify the facts from NELMCO and why AEDC should pay rent for them until they are sold off.
“We are satisfied that the building is there and the MD of AEDC accepted that it is government property and that they are planning to procure it when the bidding is done.”