Following the sack of the management OF Abuja Electricity Distribution Company Plc, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has constituted members of the interim management team for the establishment.
This is even as the regulator in the power sector, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has approved the appointment of the interim management team for the power company.
The chairman of NERC, Sanusi Garba in approving the appointment of the new interim management for the AEDC said it is “pursuant to the earlier fit and proper review of your (BPE’s) pool of nominees and in the context of Business continuity frame work of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI)”.
The members of the newly constituted interim board includes Bada Akinwumi as the Interim Managing Director; Sani Usman, Interim Chief Business Officer while Babajide Ibironke is the Interim Chief Finance Officer. Others are Donald Etim who is the Interim Chief Marketing Officer and Femi Zachaeus as the Interim Chief Technical Officer.
It would be recalled that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) had sacked the former management team of the AEDC and approved the appointment of an interim team to manage the power distribution company on the basis of legal processes arising from the failure of the core investor to meet its obligations to a lender.
NERC and BPE in a joint statement recently signed by Sanusi Garba and Alex Okoh, Chairman and Director General respectively, stated that there has been an ongoing dispute amongst competing factions of AEDC’s majority shareholder/core investor i.e. KANN Utility Company Limited (KANN); and the dispute eventually spilled over with the lender that provided the acquisition loan to KANN for the acquisition of majority shares during the privatisation exercise in 2013, over KANN’s inability to service its debt to the bank.
The United Bank for Africa (UBA) had acted as Mandated Lead Arranger, underwriting the entire facility of $122million, about N20 billion then for Kann Utilities acquisition of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company.