Steven Odeu
22 July 2002
South African-based Eskom have turned out to be the major bidders for two electricity concessions in Uganda.
The Utility Reform director, Emmanuel Nyirikindi, last week opened two bids for Uganda Electricity Generation Company (UEGC) and Uganda Electricity Distribution Company (UEDC) respectively, at the Privatisation Unit board room.
Eskom emerged the sole bidder for the generation concession (UEGC) and then teamed up with the UK-based CDC Globoleq to form a consortium to bid for the distribution consortium (UEDC).
The two bids, which comprised a transaction and financial proposal, were opened at exactly 5:00pm.
The transaction document contained the letter of content, letter of intent, executed proposal security, initial performance document and transaction documents as required by the procedures.
"These proposals will be reviewed by a technical team, which will advise us on what to do next," Nyirikindi said. "The whole process is expected to be finalised by the end of this year."
The financial proposal was immediately handed over to the Auditor General's representative.
"This function finally clears speculation. There has been a lot of speculation going on," the energy state minister, Daudi Migereko said.
Several firms had expressed interest in the process which started early last year. However, by July 23, eight firms had been prequalified. Six were technically knocked out during the evaluation process.
Firms that had originally expressed interest for the generation concession include Tata Power Limited from India, UK's Marubeni Europower Limited and the US-based AES.
CDC Capital Partners, Cinergy Global Power Inc. and Electricity Supply Board International Investment Limited from Ireland applied for the Distribution concession.
Eskom and Union Fenosa International from Spain had applied for both concessions.
Both concessions (UEGC and UEDC) will run for 20 years, with each being licensed by the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA).
The two firms are expected to agree on how their businesses are to be coordinated.
Migereko said the environment in which the concessionaires will be operating is conducive for all stakeholders.
He said apart from the distribution and generation concessions, there were other opportunities available for the new entrants.
The government with assistance of the World Bank and bilateral donors recently developed and launched a rural electrification programme, named Energy for Rural Transformation (ERT) programme.
He said ERT targets to raise the level of rural electrification access from the current 1% to at least 10% over the next 10 years.
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