Power cabal frustrates foreign investors on AEDC equity share

The ongoing ease of doing business policy and effort by President Muhammadu Buhari administration to boost foreign investments and provide stable and efficient electricity to Nigerians is being sabotaged by selfish and powerful individuals said to be influential in this government, sources told our correspondent.

One of the foreign investors in the power sector that has been a victim of this deliberate act of sabotage and whose multi-million dollars investment in Nigeria’s power sector faces huge loss is CEC Africa Investment Limited, a shareholder in KANN Utility Company Limited (KANN), a consortium that holds the majority equity of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC).

Attempt by the CEC Africa Investment Limited to enforce terms of agreement with its Nigerian partnering company, Xerxes Global Investments Limited, the two companies that own KANN consortium, and safeguard its investment is currently the subject of what stakeholders have described as “unnecessary and embarrassing litigation” at the Federal High Court, Abuja.

Case reference number FHC/Abuja/CS/684/2018 explains that between 2012 and 2013, KANN’s two shareholders; CEC Africa Investments Limited, which has over 60 years history of power operations across several southern African countries and Xerxes Global Investments Limited agreed to jointly bid for the purchase of 60% equity stake in AEDC valued at $164 million.

The two companies agreed that CECA and Xerxes would own and hold 50% each of the shares of KANN and that each of the two parties would make equal financial contribution towards the acquisition amount and costs with regard to the purchase of 60% shares of AEDC.