By Emman Ovuakporie & Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA—THE House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Investigating Power Assets, yesterday, queried the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, and the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, over the sale of Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, among other power assets.

The Ahmed Yerima-led ad-hoc committee requested from the Director-General of BPE and Abuja Disco, documents on the value of the assets of the TCN and other power stations sold by the agency.

House of Representatives

Yerima and other committee members had told the representative of BPE DG, Amechi Aloke, a Deputy Director in the agency, that the memorandum it submitted showed that the TCN assets were undervalued prior to its sale.

The lawmakers also queried why a foreign owned company, Manitoba Hydro-Electric  International Co Ltd, was awarded the management contract of TCN against its Nigerian subsidiary, Manitoba Hydro-Electric Nigeria Ltd.

But  BPE in their explanation said that there was a public advertisement that called for expression of interest before the pre-qualification of the company as the preferred bidder, where three companies emerged.

According to Ajoke, Manitoba International Company Ltd of Canada became their preferred bidder after the pre- qualification and bidding of four companies that was done transparently.

The government agency also said the whole essence of the bidding process was to get the lowest bidding contractor with the requisite expertise to take over and manage the power station.