By CHRIS OCHAYI

The Federal government said it would announce the preferred bidders for the 10 gas-fired electricity generation plants built by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company, NDPHC, under the National Integrated Power Project, NIPP, by January next year.

Bids received from a total of 66 power consortiums for the 10 gas-fired generation plants have been opened in Abuja, and now undergoing evaluation and scrutiny.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, at the bid-opening ceremony assured the bidders of transparency in the conduct of the entire privatisation process.

Nebo, who chaired the event, said, “We pray that the exercise, as you have seen from the previous ones, the PHCN successor companies, this is also going to be as transparent as possible. “So we solicit your cooperation and understanding as we go through the process and our prayer is, may those who have been ordained by God will win.”

Among the bids opened the Omotosho plant had the highest number of bidders from 13 consortiums, while Ogorode, Omoku, and Geregu attracted eight bidders respectively. Gbaran had seven, Calabar six, Olorunshogu five, and Egbema, and Benin/Ihabor plants had four bidders each.

In his address, the Managing Director of NDPHC, Mr James Olotu, said that the evaluation of the proposals would be completed within 14 days. He disclosed that the preferred bidders for the 10 NIPPs will be announced in January next year, after their proposals had been thoroughly scrutinised by an evaluation committee set up by the government.

Olotu said: “About 66 companies bidded and the bids were opened today; and there were no immediate disqualifications. One of the reasons for immediate disqualification would be that one of the important items is not there. But most of them met the primary objectives and so, we now go to the proper evaluation stage.”

Olotu, who said the NDPHC will commence the evaluation process, added, “in the next two weeks, our members of the evaluation committee would be assembled starting from today, Monday, and they will be evaluating these bids based on the parameters that have been agreed and approved.”

According to him, “hopefully by 23rd of this month or thereabout, they should have completed the approval processes. I want to assure you that everything will be done to make sure the entire process is 100% transparent.”

Promising to block any loophole in the transaction, Olotu said, what they are looking for is the competent of these companies to be able to operate and manage successfully the power plants that are applying for and to ensure they have the financial capability to actually invest. Last Friday, 66 companies scaled through the biding stage for the 10 NIPP of which two had been commissioned already. The Part A evaluation stage is the Compliance Test to evaluate the bidders’ compliance to all instructions given in the bids submission process, Part B is the Financial Proposal to determine their sufficient tangible net worth.

Anyone bidding for a 275MW asset is expected to have a financial strength of $100million, while those who had acquired a PHCN asset would add another $100million to its pool of resources. Part C of the evaluation is on the bidders’ experience and technical strength with an expected score of 75% overall assessment.

Winners would be required to pay 15-25% bond deposit and later complete the 75% acquisition payment for transfer of share ownership of their preferred NIPP.

To this ends, Olotu said the committee would be looking out for three things from the proposals of the bidders.

First, according to him, is the competence of the investors to operate and manage successfully the power plants of the capacity that they wish to acquire; second is their financial capability; and

“Lastly, to ensure that the team that forms a consortium is strong enough and not one that may fall apart halfway into the process.”