The House of Representatives has resolved to stop the privatisation of five power plants belonging to the Niger Delta Power Holding Company.

This followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance by the Chairman, House Committee on Power, Magaji Aliyuat, at the plenary, yesterday.

The lawmaker, said the National Council on Privatisation and Board of Directors of Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), in collaboration with the Bureau of Public Enterprises (PBE), had resolved to sell the power plants.

He, however, said the House was opposed to the sale as the global economic recession would also make the assets to be sold at undervalue price and cause avoidable loss to shareholders.

Aliyu listed the five plants as those in Calabar, Cross River State; Ihorbor in Edo State; Olorunsigbo, Omotosho and Geregu in Kogi State.

He said  the plants were constructed under the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) with installed generating capacities of 507megawatts (MW), 634MW, 513MW and 754MW, respectively.

He said their establishment was  to support the delivery of stable power supply to Nigerians.

Aliluyat said the shareholding of the NDPHC was held by the Federal Government at 47 per cent, while states and local governments held 53 per cent equity.

“The privatisation Act which listed the enterprises to be privatised did not list NDPHC or any of its subsidiary generation companies. This was on the ground that it was not wholly owned by the Federal Government; yet, the BPE encouraged it to proceed without corresponding approval of all the shareholders to validate the process.

“If the current timing of the privatisation is approved by the prospective shareholders, it may not enable the greatest financial value. This is due to current commercial and technical constraints in the industry, associated with poor state transmission, distribution capacity, underpayment and liquidity in the market,’’ he said.

The House cautioned the director general, BPE to desist from any act to facilitate the sales of the five generation power plants, until duly authorised by shareholders in a formal meeting as stipulated by the companies and Allied Matters Act 2020.