Nigeria is a country witnessing many developments. In an era
of many controversies, a positive aspect still appears in an obscure corner.
Disposal of public assets can conform to due process and extant laws. An agency
is walking the talk.
As civil society activists, we pry over many agencies of
government, advocating for due process and anti-corruption as spearheaded by
the present federal administration. We stumbled on an agency largely unmentioned
in the past, the Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Ltd/Gte (NELMCO), a
parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing that is
saddled with the responsibility of disposal of the Non-core properties of the
defunct PHCN.This body has set a new standard in public assets disposal in
Nigeria.
Our interest in the activities of the agency was triggered
by the echo created by the recent “Expression of Interest” published by the
agency in most national dailies and the current Federal Tenders Journal
requesting reputable organisations to serve as Valuers, Sales Agents and to
provide comprehensive inventory for the Non-core Assets of the defunct PHCN.
We gathered that the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has
previously valued the PHCN Non-core Assets listed by the agency in the recent
publication, in 2015. However, due to unfavorable public perception about the
processes leading to the selection of the Valuer and also doubts about the
amounts quoted as values of the properties which were believed to have been
compromised.
Our checks also indicated that for any sale of public
property to be deemed successful, that property must have been valued within
twelve months from the date of the sales. This we believe has necessitated the revaluation
that is being carried out by NELMCO.
Many of the bidders reported shock by some of the
requirements put up by NELMCO as a prerequisite for participation in either
Valuers or Sales Agent for the disposal of the PHCN Non-core Assets. They stated
that some of the stringent conditions adopted by NELMCO has never been seen in
the history of Nigeria, not even during the widely acclaimed monetization sales
processes.
Some of the conditions listed by the agency includes strict
adherence to the BPP Guideline for the disposal of public assets. We also
gathered that the bidders must also meet up with requirements such as BPP
Registration, CAC, Tax Clearance, Company Audited Account, Company Profile with
CV of Staff, Experience of Firm as well as PenCom, ITF, NSITF, Esvarbon, NIEVES
Registrations amongst others.
To our amazement, this will be the first time that
government agencies such as Esvarbon and NIEVES who have the mandate to certify
and regulate estate surveyors in Nigeria will play an active role in public
assets disposal in Nigeria. In addition to the requirements mentioned above,
the inclusion of the two bodies by NELMCO has come to dwarf all the previous
sales regimes of public asset disposals in Nigeria.
A further look and we were also delightedly informed that
both EFCC and ICPC will also serve as observers of the entire pre-qualification
process and will also be present at all the meetings.
We also gathered that the Comprehensive Audit was routed by
NELMCO after the agency discovered the existence of certain stranded PHCN
properties during the preliminary audit of PHCN Assets Nationwide carried out
in the six geo-political zones sometime in 2017. During the exercise, it was learned that NELMCO recorded many stranded
PHCN Properties that were unknown at that time that were not sold during the
monetization exercise as well as during other sales regimes undertaking by the
PHCN Management and whose records were lost to the fire incident at the PHCN
Headquarters in 1991.
So in a bid to recover these assets, NELMCO published an
“Expression of Interest” for the procurement of services of reputable
consultants that will carry out a Comprehensive Audit of all PHCN properties
dating back to the era of Niger Dam, ECN, NEPA and PHCN. This we also
discovered to be the first time an agency of government is going out at such
monumental scale to recover stranded public assets in Nigeria.
As the sale process continues, it is important to task the
management of the agency to keep the high standard it has set not just now but
even after the sale. That an agency is prepared to abide and even raise the bar
of public asset disposal is a commendable development.
*Contributed by Abdulahi Ibrahim, a program officer with
Power Sector Transparency Watchdog
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