A DRAFT bill to divide up Nigeria’s inefficient state-run electricity company NEPA ahead of its planned privatisation is ready, officials said on Tuesday. The government last year announced plans to improve the performance of the widely criticised National Electric Power Authority and then break it up and sell it off over the next two years. In a statement here on Tuesday, the government-appointed privatisation agency, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), said it had submitted a draft bill on the issue to the federal executive council, the Nigerian cabinet, for consideration. BPE spokesman Joseph Anichebe said the relevant draft bill, which has to be approved by parliament after the cabinet’s consideration, seeks to divide NEPA into different units. Smaller companies handling power generation and distribution will be formed out of NEPA, he said. – AFP
–>