By Tordue Salem

The House of Representatives, Thursday resolved to investigate a planned privatization of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company, NDPHC by the Bureau for Public Enterprises, BPE.

The House reached the resolution, after adopting a motion on the subject, by Rep. Olushola Fatoba (APC-Ekiti).

In his motion, the sponsor urged the “Federal Government to suspend the sale of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC) Power plants until lingering US$ issues on the matter are resolved, especially as regards ownership of NDPHC”.

The House, also adopted his prayer to “Mandate the Committee on Power and Privatisation and Commercialisation to investigate the planned sale of the NIPP power plants of the NDPHC and report back within four weeks for legislative action”.

Earlier in his motion, Fatoba recalled that “In 2005, the National Council of StAre and the National Assembly approved an initial funding of for NIPP from the Excess Crude Oil Account (ECOA) which statutorily belongs to the Federal, stars and Local governments”.

He noted further that “The Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC) is the legal vehicle vested to manage the NIPP for its shareholders-Federal, State and Local governments”.

He recalled that “In April 2021, the Board of Directprs of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC) agreed tobresolve all issues motivating against the sale of the assets and considered a special budgetary intervention of One hundred Million Dollars($100,000,000) for improved off take of the sale of NDPHC’s stranded power”.

He also recalled that “the BPE recently announced the proposed sale of five(5) NIPP assets in Cross River, Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Kogi States with the aim of using the proceeds to fund the Federal Government budget deficit”.

He warned that “assets under consideration, do not belong exclusively to the Federal government, but the three tiers of government “.

He raised concerns “that the Federal government did not take some vital issues into consideration such as the applicable policy, and the appropriate legal framework or legislation under which the transactions will be implemented, as well as the laws relating to procurement or disposal of shares and assets, given the shareholding of the State’s and Loxal governments”.

The legislator,raised the alarm, that the “Joint Transaction Board(JTB), which was created to handle the share sale of transaction of NIPP power plants, did not approve the sale of five power plants”.

The lawmaker also warned that “the BPE, being a statutory body, can only act in accordance with enabling legislation, the Privatization Act, and considering that State Governments assets can only be disposed of in accordance to State law, the State governments cannot validly accede tonthd application of Federal Legislation to the divestment of their ownership interest in the NIPP assets”.

The lawmaker also adviced the NDPHC and BPE, to act in line with the original approved plan to reinvest the proceeds of the privatization to building renewable electricity and transmission assets”.

His concerns, were adopted wholesale, along with the prayers of the motion.