Invitation for Pre
Qualification LEC
to Purchase a Majority Interest in Lesotho
Electricity Company (Pty) Ltd
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The Privatisation Unit of
the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Lesotho (the “Government”)
invites companies to pre-qualify to bid for the purchase of a majority of
the issued ordinary share capital of the Lesotho Electricity Company (Pty)
Ltd (“LEC (Pty)”), the successor company to be formed to the Lesotho
Electricity Corporation (“LEC”). LEC is the State-owned electricity
transmission and distribution operator in Lesotho. It also owns a number of
small hydro generation plants.
The Government aims to increase
the population’s access to reliable supplies of electricity and to improve
the performance of LEC.
The Government is in the process
of reforming the electricity sector. As part of this a regulator, the
Lesotho Electricity Authority, i.e. being established. LEC (Pty) will
receive a permanent concession to build, maintain and operate electricity
transmission and distribution networks and retail electricity to customers
on a monopoly basis within a specified Service Territory. Furthermore, the
Government has adopted a Tariff Plan to enable LEC (Pty) to achieve economic
tariffs within three years. An initial average tariff increase of 18% was
implemented on 1st January 2004, with further increases scheduled
for 2005 and 2006.
The Government will corporatise
LEC by creating a private company (Lesotho Electricity Company (Pty) Ltd)
and vesting all of LEC’s assets, and certain other state owned assets, in
the new entity. Once LEC is corporatised, 70% of its issued capital will be
sold to the successful bidder. The price to be paid by the successful
bidder for the majority interest will be fixed and the final selection of
the successful bidder will be based mainly on the number of new electricity
connections over a 10-year period which are offered as part of the bid.
The shortlist of bidders will be
selected from the responses to this advertisement through an evaluation
process based on the following information being provided by interested
firms:
(i)
experience in rural development of infrastructure;
(ii)
experience in
managing an electricity utility
(iii)
experience in
managing a supply utility (water, gas, electricity)
(iv)
experience in
managing an infrastructure business (wires or pipes)
(v)
experience of working
in the Africa region
(vi)
audited financial
statements of the last three years
(vii)
full details of
consortium members, if applicable, including statements from each that the
lead member is authorised to act on their behalf
(viii)
a statement that
there are no conflicts of interest. A
summary prospectus will shortly be available by e-mail from the Sales
Advisory Group at the address below and on the Government’s website at
http://www.lesotho.gov.ls.
Pre-qualification submissions including full contact details of the company
or consortium’s project manager, must be submitted on or before 12:00 hours
(Lesotho time) on Monday 3rd May 2004 to:
Submissions up to 0.5MB will be accepted by e-mail; firms should request an acknowledgement of receipt. 31 March 2004 |
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