Sambo’s aide, Kachalla, schemes to take over power privatisation

 The controversy following the discovery that former Power Minister, Bart Nnaji had interest in firms bidding for both the Afam power plant and the Enugu Distribution company, appears to have opened the door for high level scheming by senior government officials to seek to influence the work being done by the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BusinessDay has learnt.

BusinessDay, which broke the story of the underhand dealings of Nnaji, can now authoritatively report that the Deputy Chief of Staff, Mohammed Kachalla, who works from the office of the Vice President, has been mounting pressure on senior staff of the BPE with a view to influencing the privatisation process.

“Senior staff of the BPE are complaining and I believe this matter has been brought to the attention of the President,” one official of government told our reporter yesterday.
BusinessDay learnt last night, that Kachalla specifically sought to name members of the fresh team being constituted to evaluate bids for Afam power plant and in the process, suggested two officials, one from the ministry of water resources and the other from PHCN.

He also sought to remove from the team, the two independent international evaluators from NEXANT and NIAS.
The two bodies are funded by the UK’s DFID and the United States embassy.

It is believed that the scheming was meant to weaken the solid controls put in place by the BPE and the Technical Committee on Privatisation to ensure that bids were evaluated fairly and transparently.

One of the controls include a process which ensures that each bid will be evaluated separately by each member of the team, rather than by just by one person, as has been the case in the past.

According to one source close to the process, “the idea is that if one person consistently evaluates a particular bid differently, then he should have questions to answer from his colleagues.”

BusinessDay also learnt that the result of the team’s evaluation would then be subjected to at least two other reviews, a solid process that ensures that team members do not unduly favour any bidder.

Senior government officials who spoke to BusinessDay last night in Abuja, insisted that the sudden departure of Nnaji must be seen as clear indication of the President’s resolve to deliver on his promise to deliver a fair and transparent power privatisation to Nigerians.