The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has said the new interim governing board of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) which was recently appointed was not done based on the Federal Government directive but on the basis of legal processes. The regulatory bodies in a joint statement said the legal processes arose from the failure of the core investor in AEDC to meet its obligations to a lender, adding that the government remains committed to ongoing initiatives on the recovery of the electricity sector.

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The statement signed by the NERC’s Chairman, Sanusi Garba and BPE’s Director General, Alex Okoh, said its attention was drawn to the misrepresentation in some quarters leading to the change in composition of the board at AEDC. The statement explained that there has been an ongoing dispute amongst competing factions of AEDC’s majority shareholder/core investor (KANN Utility Company Limited) which spilled over with the lender that provided the acquisition loan to KANN. It noted that during the crisis, AEDC not only struggled to meet its obligations to the market under the terms and conditions of its license but was also unable to meet its obligations to key stakeholders in the organisation including staff which culminated in the industrial action by members of the Nigerian Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE).