NIGERIA IS STILL FOR SALE PART 3.

PENTASCOPE carried out no new installation or upgrade and left the company withN19 billion liability.

Again, rather than allow NITEL to recover, OBJ placed it under the management of the Bereau of  Public Enterprises (BPE) from February 2005 to November 2006 which not only failed to pay salaries, but also sank its teeth into the NITEL staff pension fund, eating it to the bones.

Then the administration handed NITEL to a new  company in which it had vested interests called TRANSCORP then headed by the Director General of the Nigeria Stock Exchange, Ndidi Okereke- Onyuike; the regulator who also turned player.

TRANSCORP played the  undertaker auctioning NITEL'S choice property including its expansive training school, exchanges and offices. Its GSM arm with 1.3 million subscribers, was wiped out.

The Jonathan administration auctioned off lots of national assets without tangible benefits for the Country. The largest being the Power  Holding Company (PHCN) which it broke into one  Transmission Company, TCN, Six Generating Companies (GENCOs) and 11 distribution Companies and handed  them to the new ' owners' in 2013 even when some of them had not perfected their briefs.

For instance, government handed over the Yola Power Company without the so called lnvestor, IEC, paying a substantial part of the money. Given this fact and so called investor's management challenges, the electricity staff seized the facility and started runing it until now.

In the case if the AFAM Power Station with a 115mw capacity, TELEVARAS, the core  investor paid only 25 percent of the transaction  value and has been runing it without even paying salaries.

As for the Transmission Company, TCN, it was handed over to Manitoba Hydro International of Canada Manitoba's managerial competence can be gleaned from its multiplication of offices.

Whereas the PHCN before it split into 18 parts had one Managing Director and Six Executive Directors, Eight Directors and various General Mangers. Government also decided to place public funds of the disposal of the private energy companies by establishing a special fund in the Central Bank of Nigeria while also increasing tariff for them to the detriment of the customer.

When the Courts ruled these arbitrary tariff increase illegal and ordered their reversal, even the Federal Government's Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) joined in telling the Courts to go to hell.  As part of the costs of 'Privatisation' of the energy sector, N1.5 billion  was allegedly paid by the government to Messrs J.K Gadzama as ' legal fee'. The sale of the energy sector brought no foreign exchange, no foreign direct investment, no efficiency, no improved power generating or distribution and no end to crazy bills.

Almost no new operational vehicles or transformers have been bought and consumers now pay more for darkness, with post- paid meters, consumers need pay only for what they consume.  So the Companies are not enthusiastic to make them available even at the exorbitant rates they impose on helpless consumers. This way, they impose 'estimated bills' or refuse to read meter.

When the rich start preaching on the need to sell national assets, they already have the funds or consortium to buy them at grossly under valued prices.  That is our collective experience.



RPI..........................Mission Rekindled.