Mixed Reactions as Tinubu urges FG to Revisit Power Sector Privatisation

Stakeholders in the nation’s power sector have expressed divergent views on the call by the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, for the Federal Government to revisit the privatisation of the sector.

The Federal Government handed over the nation’s generation and distribution companies to private investors on November 1, 2013, following the unbundling of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria.

Tinubu, at the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium in Abuja on Thursday, urged the government to revisit the privatisation of the sector, saying the country could not afford to be too legalistic about it.

He advised the government to bring experts together for a more constructive reform to improve power generation, transmission and distribution by any means necessary.

He also said the government should push for an end to the practice of estimated billing, adding that people were being forced to pay for the electricity they did not consume.

He described estimated billing as “a vestige of the past that should not accompany Nigerians into the future.”

The former Lagos State Governor said President Muhammadu Buhari’s second-term administration should dedicate itself to changing the very structure of Nigeria’s economy for the better as no government had done.

“The single most important sector for the government’s focus is infrastructure. The most important of our infrastructural demand is power,” he said, adding that affordable and reliable power would drive industrialisation and boost job creation.

Tinubu said, “I believe the second Buhari administration will work to increase electricity generation, transmission and distribution by more than 50 per cent within the next four years. It is a challenge we must go through and we will be held responsible for it. We require serious and bold reforms to achieve this.

“What is happening to our gas pipelines? Whatever we have to invest now for our future is a task that must be done boldly. The Peoples Democratic Party administration shared out generation, distribution and transmission to their friends and cronies without very deep and thoughtful research and evaluation. It has now become pork chops.”

The Nigeria Union of Electricity Employees described Tinubu’s call for a revisiting of the power sector privatisation as a welcome development.

The General Secretary, NUEE, Joe Ajaero, in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents, said, “If Tinubu is saying what we have said some years ago now, it then means that more Nigerians are beginning to see what we foresaw. The NUEE was clear about the issue of privatisation, and we never bought into it.

“There was a provision for the review of the sector after five years and that was to happen in November last year, but there was a criminal silence at expiration. What is the level of investment in the sector? There should be a national debate to see whether we have made progress.”

According to Ajaero, the owners of the Discos and Gencos are still not known.

The Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, Sunday Oduntan, said, “For us, as operators in the sector, we are not really interested in the politics of power supply; we are interested in supplying power. I think the privatisation process was done openly. There was a process; they (government) even went round the world looking for investors.

“The Disco investors that I represent paid a sum of $1.4bn for the entities, and we have always been talking about the challenges in the sector. For us, we will continue to cooperate with the Federal Government to ensure there is an improvement in the sector.”

He said the Discos would continue to support the Meter Asset Provider scheme so that meters would be provided to all consumers.

Oduntan said, “The current Federal Government has done a lot to improve the lot of the power sector, and we have no doubt that more power will be delivered to Nigerians. And that is what we are interested in.

 

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