Group wins Afam plant with $260m

An energy firm – Televeras Group —
which is jointly owned by Nigerians and
British West Indies, emerged yesterday
the preferred bidders for Afam Power
Plc, with an offer of $260,050,000.
Its only rival, TES Power Limited, offered
$222,900,000 for the firm.
For Kaduna Electricity Distribution
Company, an indigenous power firm,
Northwest Power Limited, won the bid,
with an offer of 29.29 per cent Aggregate
Technical, Commercial and Collection
(ATC&C) to defeat five other bidders.
Its closest rival, Leda Consortium, scored
26.71 per cent at the opening of the
commercial bids for the privatisation of
the power entities conducted in Abuja.
Other firms that bid for the purchase of
the Kaduna Disco were Axis Power
Distribution Limited that scored 17.4 per
cent ATC&C, Copperbelt Consortium
offered 21.73 per cent, NAHCO Power
Consortium offered 22.83 per cent, while
Leda Consortium offered 29.73 per cent,
Incar Power offered 22.73 per cent.
Chairman, Technical Committee of
National Council on Privatisation (NCP),
Peterside Atedo, who presided over the
bidding, said: "Even as the preferred
bidders could wish to celebrate
prematurely," only the NCP headed by
Vice President Nnamadi Sambo has the
power to approve the preferred bidder.
Atedo explained: "For Afam Genco two
bidders (TES Power Limited and Taleveras
Group) attained the 75 per cent
minimum score and also submitted the
required post-qualification security.
"For Kaduna Disco, six bidders attained
the minimum 75 per cent score and also
submitted their post qualification
security."
He recalled that the Kaduna Disco and
Afam Generation Plc were among the 17
successor companies that were advertised
for sale in December 2010.
Atedo added that both companies along
with 15 others went through a full
competitive tender process, which
culminated in the submission of technical
and financial proposal in July 2012.
The NCP technical chairman said:
"Following the rigorous technical
evaluation of all the bids none of the bids
received for Afam Power Plc and Kaduna
Electricity Distribution Plc scored the
minimum 75 per cent required to
progress to the financial bid stage. This
development compelled the NCP to order
a re-run of the entire transaction as it
was not prepared to settle for a sub-
optimal outcome."
He said that NCP directed that no fresh
adverts would be put out and instead all
pre-qualified bidders who had earlier
expressed an interest in the power
privatisation and paid the US$20,000 data
room fees would be allowed to
participate in the exercise.
Atedo noted that letters were sent to all
the 163bidders asking them to indicate
their interest by submitting fresh bids for
the two entities.
The Director General, Bureau of Public
Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Benjamin
Dikki recalled : "None of the bids received
for Afam Power plant and Kaduna Disco
met the minimum score of 750 marks
required to pass the technical evaluation
during the first round of sale of PHCN
successor companies."
He said that a lot of experience had been
gained in conducting the earlier
transactions for the other five generation
and 10 distribution companies.
Dikki listed some of the challenges
already addressed to include a new tariff
order this is more cost-reflective than
before, improvement in gas supply and
gas infrastructure , finalizsation of industry
agreements covering gas supply and
transportation, electricity transmission
and distribution and bulk power purchase.