DeniAfrica

African Financial Markets reports:

The privatization of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) formerly National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), might have gone into limbo as it was learnt that a powerful cabal consisting of top government officials in the Ministry of Power and Steel and collaborators in the company were frustrating its sale to the private sector. NEPA, now PHCN, arguably received more funds from the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, since its inception in May 1999, than any single government enterprise, yet power supply has remained abysmal, in what has come be seen as, a conspiracy between government officials and generator dealers. However, officials of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) said the allegation of cabals frustrating the sale of what remained of former NEPA as they claimed to be waiting for the Corporate Structural Advisers, to be appointed by the World Bank, before going ahead. For more than two years, the BPE had set several targets for the transfer of the nations electricity sector private operators to give the comatose sector a new lease of life, particularly with the steady reduction in power generation in the last one year.